text
stringlengths 1
143k
| label
int64 0
1
|
|---|---|
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The chairman of European Union leaders said on Monday he was encouraged by the progress of talks on avoiding a physical border between Ireland and Northern Ireland after Britain leaves the EU, which brought closer the prospect of starting trade talks with Britain. London wants to start talks on the future trade deal with the EU as soon as possible to provide clarity for companies based in Britain on the terms of business after exiting the EU in March 2019. But the EU said it could only start such talks once sufficient progress is made in negotiations on the terms of the divorce - a financial settlement, citizens rights and the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Tell me why I like Mondays! Encouraged after my phone call with Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar) on progress on Brexit issue of Ireland. Getting closer to sufficient progress at December EU summit, Donald Tusk said on Twitter. | 1 |
Perhaps Merkel should have considered the serious consequences of Germany s compassionate open border policy that allowed over 1 million (mostly) Muslim males to infiltrate their country. German officials essentially granted them permission to rape and sexually assault their women and children while they looked the other way. But that s not all Germany is giving them free food, housing, education and spending money to boot. Does Angela Merkel really believe that when she tells these freeloading Muslim males that it s time to go back home, that they re going to pack up their bags and leave? As Germany s open-door refugee policy comes increasingly under fire, the Chancellor has tried to silence her critics.Despite mounting pressure to cap the number of refugees in the wake of the Cologne sex attacks which saw 130 women sexually assaulted by men, believed to be migrants, Mrs Merkel has stood her ground.Some 1.1million migrants entered Germany last year, many fleeing conflicts in Syria and Iraq.Mrs Merkel said: We need to say to people that this is a temporary residential status and we expect that, once there is peace in Syria again, once ISIS has been defeated in Iraq, that you go back to your home country with the knowledge that you have gained. Mrs Merkel said 70 per cent of the refugees who fled to Germany from former Yugoslavia in the 1990s had returned.She urged other European countries to offer more help because the numbers need to be reduced even further and must not start to rise again, especially in spring .Speaking to a regional meeting of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Mrs Merkel said said all EU states should have an interest in protecting the bloc s external borders, and all would suffer if the internal passport-free Schengen zone collapsed and national borders were closed.Peter Altmaier, who Mrs Merkel has tasked with overseeing the government s handling of the refugee crisis, said the government was negotiating with some countries including Turkey about taking back criminal refugees who arrived via non-EU countries.Yeah because what nation in their right mind wouldn t gladly accept criminal refugees into their country? Gee, we sure hope Merkel isn t foolish enough to believe there aren t any members of ISIS living comfortably in refugee housing or camps inside their open-borders.Via: Express UK | 1 |
A sobering new Security Council ( SC ) analytical report on the US presidential election states that a new American Revolution has begun which today’s popular vote is just the beginning of; and that could fully last up to an entire decade, especially if this election is stolen from Donald Trump. [Note: Some words and/or phrases appearing in quotes in this report are English language approximations of Russian words/phrases having no exact counterpart.]
According to this report, Federation intelligence analysts in their “deciphering/uncovering” what the current US presidential election is really all about have heavily relied on “outliers” [a thing situated away or detached from the main body or system] such as artificial intelligence ( AI ) models, social media trends and psychological analysis of the American electorate.
This report notes that the Security Councils use of these “outliers” to both understand and explain what is occurring during this US presidential election provides the only proven scientific evidence of what is occurring as the so called polling data used by the American propaganda media has been proven to be nothing more than a manipulation device used to keep people from voting for or supporting the anti-establishment candidate Donald Trump.
Examples of this being true, this report explains, lie in too many examples to fully cite—but includes the once respected Monmouth University poll found manipulating data to favor Hillary Clinton , news networks NBC and CBS found manipulating polling data to show Hillary Clinton leading Donald Trump when she was actually losing , and CNN manipulating their poll data to favor Hillary Clinton too .
Unlike manipulated polling data showing Hillary Clinton will win this election, however, this report continues, the objective and independent scientific “outliers” used by Security Council research analysts show not only Donald Trump winning—but winning in a landslide victory.
Evidence proving this assertion of a Donald Trump US presidential win, this report notes, lies first with artificial intelligence analysis—that includes the MogIA supercomputer showing Trump winning in landslide and showing he is more popular than President Obama , and a just released AI computer simulation showing Trump winning with 289 electoral votes compared to Clinton’s 249 .
Social media trend lines in this election, likewise, proves a Donald Trump landslide win in this election, this report continues, as his Facebook-Twitter-Instagram-YouTube “presence” dwarfs Hillary Clinton’s by a staggering 74 million —and that is further validated by the over 700,000 Americans who have come to his campaign rallies, as opposed to the barely 60,000 that have attended Hillary Clinton’s .
Most fascinating though of the “outliers” used in this Security Council report is the psychological analysis of the American electorate conducted by a virtually unknown US political project called “ We Need Smith ”—whose scientifically conducted studies shockingly proved that anyone from a liberal Democrat, to a conservative Republican was able to win the US presidency as long as they promised to destroy the corrupt political system currently ruling America .
The “We Need Smith” project, this report explains, is named after a popular US Great Depression era movie called Mr. Smith Goes To Washington about a newly appointed United States Senator who fights against a corrupt political system—and that during this present US presidential election only Donald Trump and US Senator Bernie Sanders fit the mold of.
Critical to note about the “We Need Smith” project too, this report continues, is that it was co-founded by the legendary American pollster Patrick Caddell —who almost singlehandedly was responsible for putting President Jimmy Carter in office in 1976, but also presided over Carter’s unprecedented defeat in 1980 at the hands of the US establishments most hated candidate Ronald Reagan.
Seeking to understand how President Carter could go from victory to defeat in just 4 years, this report details, Patrick Caddell spent the past nearly 4 decades examining it—and coming to the scientific conclusion that the conventional wisdom that America is absolutely divided into warring tribes is simply not true, they are all just tired of being lied to .
In fact, this report continues, Caddell’s research proved that the American political battleground is no longer over ideology but instead is all about insurgency—and with a staggering 84% of the American public believing that the elites live by a different set of rules and laws than ordinary people do , anyone running against them is assured victory.
Interestingly to note too, this report says, is Caddell’s scientific analyses showing that the hatred of the American people towards their elites comes from both the left and right —and as evidenced by the equal explosive political movements known as Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party insurgencies .
This report grimly concludes, however, with a warning that Soviet Communist leader Joseph Stalin’s attributed statement—“ Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything. ”—may, indeed, be active in the present US presidential election after newly released secret documents revealed that Hillary Clinton’s main supporter, multi-billionaire George Soros, has not only been manipulating the entire American election system , but one of his companies is, also, providing vote county software to 16 States ( they’ve since denied )—and that should Donald Trump have this election stolen from him the people of that nation will most surely revolt.
Source
| 1 |
Donald Trump probably wishes the United States was more like the Philippines.Trump was downright chummy with mass murderer and human rights violator Rodrigo Duterte on Monday during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summit in Manila.Not only did Trump refuse to nail Duterte for violating human rights, he laughed when Duterte accused journalists of being spies when they peppered the dictatorial duo with questions about human rights. We would be talking on matters that are of interest of both the Philippines and With you around guys, you are the spies, Duterte said, drawing laughter from Trump.Bloomber reporter Jennifer Jacobs chronicled how Duterte and Trump treated journalists at the Summit.Duterte made a joke at end of Trump bilat.As press being shooed out, Duterte said: We will be talking on matters of interest to both the Philippines and Then he said: With you around, guys, you are the spies. Trump chuckled. pic.twitter.com/dQ2fx9Sj8T Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) November 13, 2017When reporters asked Pres Trump if he would bring up human rights with Duterte, Duterte shut it down saying this was not a news conference. Steve Holland (@steveholland1) November 13, 2017 I would like for the media to leave us alone. You may leave the room, Duterte says, just minutes into summit meeting.Press ushered out. pic.twitter.com/lhfFgp3xJU Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) November 13, 2017Trump has been attacking the media since he announced his candidacy back in 2015. And he has relentlessly attacked the media since taking office, accusing journalists of writing or reporting fake news. Ever since he became the Philippine leader, Duterte has been responsible for the killing of 100,000 people, casualties of a war on drugs Duterte promised to wage during his campaign.President Obama was a sharp critic of Duterte, and Duterte retaliated by calling him the son of a whore and sought closer ties with China and Russia. Of course, Trump likes Duterte and has avoided calling him out for his abuse of power. Trump even invited Duterte to the White House.Trump s amusement at Duterte s remarks about journalists are particularly alarming since the Philippines is one of the most deadly places on Earth for journalists.Newsweek reports that 177 journalists have been killed there since 1986.And Trump added further insult to injury by not even discussing Duterte s terrible human rights record. Instead, he let Duterte do all the talking and merely nodded in agreement with him. Once again, Trump demonstrates that he is a coward who can be walked over by other world leaders. Conservatives bitched and moaned whenever President Obama bowed to greet some world leaders. But apparently they are okay with Trump just laying down.Featured Image: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images | 1 |
Another turn left for the Hillster so no school choice and no teacher accountability. Would you vote for someone who favors the Union over your kids? So much for liberating poor kids from failing schools While the media chase the Bernie Sanders rallies, keep your eye on the political crowds that matter. On Saturday the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) endorsed Hillary Clinton 16 months before Election Day.This counts in the fight for the Democratic Party nomination because the 1.6 million member union boasts it can make a million phone calls and knock on 500,000 doors. Bernie s Birkenstock irregulars can t match that political power and money.The endorsement is even more notable as another sign of Hillary s left political turn. Democrats in New York and elsewhere have been debating education reform, but by embracing the AFT Mrs. Clinton is choosing the union status quo that opposes school choice and teacher accountability.Via: WSJ | 1 |
CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian authorities have released high-profile Irish detainee Ibrahim Halawa following his acquittal last month of charges including murder, in a four-year mass trial criticized by human rights groups. Halawa, a student, and three of his sisters were charged along with nearly 500 others with a host of crimes including breaking into a mosque, killing 44 people, and illegal possession of firearms in violence that followed the military s overthrow of Egypt s Islamist president, Mohamed Mursi, in 2013. Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney told Irish national broadcaster RTE on Friday that Halawa was likely to be able to fly home by Monday following his release late on Thursday. This is a great moment for Ibrahim and his family a moment for celebration, and a moment for savoring freedom, and I want to wish Ibrahim Halawa and his family all health and happiness for the future, Coveney said in a separate statement. Egyptian rights activists say they have faced the worst crackdown in their history under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who was elected president in 2014, a year after as armed forces commander he led the military s toppling of Mursi. Halawa was 17 when he was arrested in 2013 with hundreds of others as part of the crackdown on protests. Since then he had been held in pre-trial detention, where he said he was regularly tortured. The defendants in the case had all faced the death penalty but none received it, though hundreds were given sometimes hefty jail sentences. Rights groups welcomed Halawa s release. After four years of unjust detention, today Ibrahim Halawa finally walks free. He should never have been jailed in the first place and it is utterly outrageous that he was forced to spend a single minute of his young life behind bars. said Najia Bounaim, North Africa Campaigns Director at Amnesty International. Reuters was not immediately able to reach Halawa s family for comment on Friday, but his sister Fatima told RTE in a radio interview: It s beyond description ... It s amazing to finally know that Ibrahim is out and he s released and he s safe. | 1 |
DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia aims to start issuing tourist visas to foreigners next year, a senior Saudi official told CNN, as the government seeks to open up the conservative kingdom and find new sources of revenue to diversify its economy. At present, foreigners traveling to Saudi Arabia are largely restricted to resident workers and their dependents, business travelers, and Muslim pilgrims who are given special visas to travel to holy sites. The targets are people who want to come and literally experience this country, and really the grandness of this country, Prince Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, head of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Natural Heritage, said in an interview broadcast late on Wednesday. Asked about plans for the visas, he replied: Hopefully in 2018, adding that the government would use online technology to make applying for visas easy. Saudi Arabia s 32-year-old heir to the throne, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is seeking to develop new industries to wean his country off its dependency on oil exports. He has also taken some steps to loosen its ultra-strict social restrictions, scaling back the role of religious morality police and announcing plans to allowing women to drive next year. Plans to admit significant numbers of tourists from abroad have been discussed for years, only to be blocked by conservative opinion and bureaucracy; the commission announced such a plan as long ago as 2006, but it did not go ahead. This time, the government appears determined to push through the change, partly because of financial pressures. It hopes to earn billions of dollars to cover a state budget deficit caused by low oil prices. Economic reforms aim to lift total tourism spending in the country - by local citizens as well as foreigners - to $46.6 billion in 2020 from $27.9 billion in 2015. Prince Sultan said his commission was focusing mainly on increasing numbers of local tourists. The commission has estimated Saudis spend more than $20 billion annually on tourism abroad, and persuading more of them to holiday inside the country would reduce that drain on the economy. But Prince Sultan told CNN that his commission was also working to prepare tourist spots for foreigners. The government announced plans in August to develop resorts on about 50 islands off the Red Sea coast, with the first phase of the project to be completed in 2022. The kingdom also intends to offer visits to historic sites such as Mada in Saleh, a 2,000-year-old Nabatean city carved into the rocks of the northern desert. Heir to the throne Prince Mohammed would be the first ruler from a new generation since 1953, after six kings who were all sons of state founder Abdulaziz ibn Saud. He has announced wide plans for social and political reforms to the kingdom, which is ruled as an absolute monarchy with a powerful clergy that adheres to Wahhabism, an ultra-austere version of Sunni Islam. | 1 |
After watching this telling video, you ll wonder if instead of working so hard to get back into the White House, Hillary s time would be better spent looking into an assisted living situation for her and Bill | 1 |
JAKARTA (Reuters) - Thousands of Indonesians, led by Islamist groups, held a rally near the Myanmar embassy in Jakarta on Wednesday to protest against the treatment of Rohingya Muslims and demand the snapping of ties between the two countries. Indonesia has the world s largest population of Muslims and there have been several anti-Myanmar protests in Jakarta and the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur over the treatment of Buddhist-majority Myanmar s roughly 1.1 million Rohingyas. Roads were blocked and barbed wire barriers put up around the embassy, in a leafy district of the capital, which was patrolled by police in riot gear who set up water cannons. Some protesters chanted Allahu Akbar (God is Greatest), while others shouted slogans such as Slaughter Myanmar and Burn the embassy . Buddhists should respect Muslims in Myanmar in the same way that Muslims respected Buddhists in Indonesia, one speaker told the crowd, using a loud-hailer. Almost 125,000 Rohingyas have been forced to flee clashes between Rohingya insurgents and the army in Myanmar s northwestern state of Rakhine. Tens of thousands have crossed the border into neighboring Bangladesh. Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi met Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi and top security officials this week to urge a halt to the bloodshed. Marsudi also visited Dhaka, capital of Bangladesh on Tuesday, to offer help in tackling the crisis. Some protesters at the Jakarta rally called for the expulsion of the Myanmar ambassador over the issue, as well as for diplomatic ties between the two countries to be severed. Myanmar embassy staff would be safe, however, said a foreign ministry spokesman, Armanatha Nasir. It is the responsibility of the host countries to ensure the safety of all diplomatic missions and their personnel, the spokesman said. Indonesia takes this responsibility seriously. At the weekend, a petrol bomb was thrown at the embassy causing a small fire. Indonesian police have also pledged to bar Islamist groups from staging a rally on Friday at the Borobudur Buddhist temple in central Java to protest against the treatment of Myanmar s Rohingya Muslims. | 1 |
Can nuclear war break out on the Korean Peninsula? 02.11.2016 Print version Font Size Does China support Pyongyang? Can the Chinese intervene in a possible conflict between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the United States? Senior officer at the Center for Korean Studies at the Institute of the Far East, Yevgeny Kim, gave an interview to Pravda.Ru, in which we spoke about North Korea's nuclear program and the possibility of the denuclearization of South-East Asia. "North Korea is a closed and little known country in many ways. Yet, who raised the question of a nuclear threat? After all, there are American atomic bombs in South Korea." "China has been involved in this actively during the recent years, but one should not attach much importance to it. The mandate of the six-party talks was about the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. The question is not only about the elimination of nuclear weapons in North Korea . One should remove US nuclear bombs from South Korea and exclude a possibility for any type of nuclear weapons to appear on the Korean Peninsula on the whole. "US nuclear-powered submarines with nuclear weapons, US aircraft carriers with nuclear weapons and US aircraft with nuclear weapons violate the regime of the nuclear-free zone in South Korea. Look at the Goa Declaration that was signed by the leaders of Russia, China, India, Brazil and South Africa. There are more than one hundred articles in this lengthy declaration, but it contains no word about the North Korean nuclear issue."Last year's BRICS declaration did not mention anything about the the North Korean nuclear issue. Therefore, the leaders of the five countries do not believe that North Korea is guilty of this problem." "Vladimir Putin said once that no one will touch a country if this country has a nuclear bomb. If it does not have a nuclear bomb, this country may experience the fate of Libya. What is Russia's stance on North Korea? Does Russia recognize the right of North Korea to have a nuclear bomb?" "The Americans would have shipped air defense systems to South Korea regardless of what kind of weapons North Korea would have had - nuclear or not. Russia is one of the great powers that has nuclear weapons, but Russia is not interested in the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Of course, Russia would not like to see the emergence of new nuclear powers in the world. "At the same time, Russia understands why other countries have nuclear weapons. Russia always says that all countries should proceed from the interests of equal security. Why should the USA be worried about the presence of nuclear weapons in North Korea? North Korea cannot attack the USA. Even if North Korea has launched missiles into space , it does not mean that those missiles can carry nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons have to be delivered to the territory of another state, and a missile has to reenter the atmosphere, where plasma can destroy it, but the missile has to remain guidable in such conditions to deliver its nuclear weapons to the target. North Korea does not have the technology." "Why does China keep silence?" "China understands the reason, for which North Korea has to develop its nuclear weapons. The Chinese realize that the Americans deploy air defense complexes to contain China and Russia, not North Korea. The Americans do not even hide the fact that they have another nuclear warhead to be delivered to Germany. Nowadays, one can test and further improve nuclear weapons without a physical explosion, and North Korea would need to switch to methods of mathematical analysis." "What will determine the economic development of North Korea - Sangun or reforms?" "Reforms, definitely. Sangun - the policy of the supremacy of the army - appeared in the mid-1990s, when the country was in dire straits. The country was forced to unite as a military camp and create the mobilization economy. Sangun made it possible to overcome a very difficult period in the history of North Korea, and the country continued its development, where rigid military control was not required. Now they conduct reforms." "Do you think a nuclear war may break out on the Korean Peninsula?" "No, a nuclear war will not break out on the Korean peninsula, as North Korea will not use military weapons first. The Americans have a theory of pre-emptive nuclear strike on North Korea, and Russia too, by the way. North Korea does not have such a theory." Interviewed by Said Gafurov Read article on the Russian version of Pravda.Ru North Korea threatens USA with 'unique' war | 1 |
Shia Labeouf maniacally screams "he will not divide us!" in a Trump supporter's face thereby becoming the physical embodiment of division. pic.twitter.com/vwCUn6acNL Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) January 22, 2017Commencing at 9am on January 20, 2017, the day of the inauguration of the 45th President of the United States, the public is invited to deliver the words HE WILL NOT DIVIDE US into a camera mounted on a wall outside the Museum of the Moving Image, New York, repeating the phrase as many times, and for as long as they wish.Open to all, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the participatory performance will be live-streamed continuously for four years, or the duration of the presidency. In this way, the mantra HE WILL NOT DIVIDE US acts as a show of resistance or insistence, opposition or optimism, guided by the spirit of each individual participant and the community. | 1 |
Islamic State suicide bombers brought terror, chaos and bloodshed to the city at the heart of European unity on Tuesday, detonating their nail-spewing bombs at an airport departures hall and on a subway train in attacks that left at least 31 people dead and prompted authorities to launch an intensive manhunt for at least one suspected accomplice.
The wanted man accompanied two of the bombers to the airport, along with luggage heaving with explosives. Authorities were also hunting for a suspected Belgian bombmaker who trained in Syria with the Islamic State and later sneaked back into Europe. On Wednesday, Belgian state broadcaster RTBF identified two of the attackers who targeted Brussels as brothers Khalid and Brahim Bakraoui.
Tuesday’s mass killings add this city to an ignominious but growing list of European capitals that have been struck in the past year by deadly attacks either perpetrated or inspired by the Islamic State, including Paris and Copenhagen.
Authorities had been bracing for an attack in Belgium for months as the country has struggled to stem a tide of homegrown extremism and as the Islamic State has repeatedly threatened to hit Europe in its core.
But when the attacks finally came, the magnitude was stunning. The day’s violence represented the worst on Belgian soil since World War II.
“What we had feared has happened,” said Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel. “This is a black moment for our country.”
[‘People who died weren’t whole anymore. They were in pieces.’]
The apparently coordinated explosions created a renewed sense of threat that spilled far beyond Brussels, as authorities boosted police patrols in cities such as Paris, London and Washington.
The targets appeared to have been chosen for their symbolic value and for their ease of access.
The attackers first struck
with twin bombings at the international airport, where early-
morning travelers were preparing to board flights linking Brussels to cities across the continent and around the world. An hour later, a subway car transiting beneath the modernist glass-and-steel high-rises that house the European Union burst with smoke and flame.
In addition to the dead, about 250 people were injured, Belgian officials said.
Many of the injured lost limbs as shrapnel from the blasts radiated through packed crowds. Cellphone video recorded in the minutes after the airport blasts showed children cowering on a bloody floor amid the maimed and the dead. Footage from a subway station revealed desperate scenes as people dressed for a day’s work stumbled from the mangled wreckage into a smoke-drenched tunnel.
Authorities acknowledged that they had been readying for an attack. But nothing like this, they said.
“We never could have imagined something of this scale,” Interior Minister Jan Jambon told Belgian television station RTL.
And even as the country tried to recover from the trauma of Tuesday’s strikes, there was evidence that more could be on the way.
[How the Brussels attacks could force Obama to betray his policy instincts]
The man being sought by police accompanied two of the bombers to the airport, according to a senior Belgian official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details of the case. The taxi driver who transported them said they were hauling particularly heavy luggage that investigators believe was packed with explosives.
At an apartment in the Schaerbeek area of Brussels, investigators later found explosive devices loaded with nails and chemicals, along with an Islamic State flag, the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
“It was exactly the same type of bomb as at the airport,” the senior official said.
Belgian police released surveillance images of three men pushing luggage carts at Brussels Airport. The prosecutor’s office said two of them — dressed in black with black gloves on their left hands, probably to conceal detonators — had blown themselves up. But the third, dressed in white, was on the loose. His identity was unknown, and despite a nationwide hunt — with heavily armed officers combing the streets and checkpoints at Belgian borders snarling traffic for miles — the suspect remained at large Tuesday night.
Across the continent, authorities were also hunting 24-year-old Najim Laachraoui, a suspected Islamic State bombmaker, according to two European security officials.
Laachraoui, a Belgian who was born in Morocco and raised in the Schaerbeek neighborhood, is believed to have trained in Syria and then returned to Europe. His DNA was found on one of the explosives belts from November’s Paris attacks, and he is thought to have traveled at one point with Salah Abdeslam, the only surviving suspect believed to have played a direct role in the Paris massacre.
Tuesday’s attacks came only four days after Belgian counterterrorism authorities cheered the arrest of Abdeslam, 26, who was the most wanted man in Europe for the past four months. Abdeslam was discovered hiding in a Brussels apartment building in the Molenbeek neighborhood, near the center of the city. After the raid, officials said they had uncovered a web of suspects much broader than they previously imagined.
Within hours of Tuesday’s assault, the Islamic State asserted responsibility for the attacks, according to a statement posted on the Amaq Agency, a website believed to be close to the extremist group. The message said Belgium was targeted because of its participation in an international coalition battling the group in Syria and Iraq. U.S. and European security officials said they believed the claim to be credible.
The latest bloodshed made clear that European capitals remain perilously vulnerable despite attempts to dismantle the militant network that perpetrated the worst terrorist attack in Paris in generations last November.
In Washington, State Department spokesman John Kirby said U.S. citizens were among the injured, but he would not say how many. No Americans are known to have died in the attacks, although that information may change, he said. The State Department also issued an alert on traveling in Europe, urging Americans to avoid crowded places and to exercise caution during religious holidays and at large festivals or events.
Europe has struggled mightily with spillover from the churning conflict in Syria. Thousands of European citizens have traveled there to fight in a war that has become a focal point for jihadists around the world. Many have returned to Europe radicalized. Europe has vowed to confront them.
[Why is Brussels under attack?]
“We are at war,” said French Prime Minister Manuel Valls. “We have been subjected for the last few months in Europe to acts of war.”
In Havana, at the end of a landmark trip, President Obama urged “the world to unite” to fight terrorism, and he pledged to “do whatever is necessary” to aid the investigation in Belgium.
The assaults brought Brussels to a virtual standstill. The subway and the airport were closed — the latter will remain so on Wednesday — and Belgian leaders warned residents to stay indoors. Foreign governments, including Britain, issued advisories warning against travel to the Belgian capital.
In France — where 130 people died Nov. 13 in attacks on a stadium, a music club and restaurants — Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said that an additional 1,600 police officers were deployed and that security was boosted at border posts and major transportation hubs.
On social media, an image soon appeared: a figure draped in the colors of the French flag embracing another tearful figure in the black, yellow and red of Belgium’s banner.
At a news conference in Jordan, the E.U.’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, choked back tears after learning of the Brussels attacks.
Belgium, a nation riven by ethnic rivalries among French, Dutch and German speakers, has struggled to address radicalization in its cities. A complex patchwork of security and police agencies is responsible for keeping an eye on potential threats. Many of them view one another as rivals rather than as colleagues.
Still, security analysts said attacks on unsecured, high-traffic targets such as subway stations are extremely hard to defend against — even when authorities are focused on foiling such plots.
“This is a kind of scenario every capital in Europe feared since the November attacks last year. A mixture of foreign fighters coming back with experience, local sympathizers on the other hand,” said Rik Coolsaet, a terrorism expert at Ghent University who has advised the Belgian government on how to fight radicalization. “You have such a large number of soft targets, and you cannot secure all of them.”
Birnbaum reported from Moscow. James McAuley and Anthony Faiola in Brussels, Daniela Deane and Karla Adam in London, and Brian Murphy, Carol Morello and Matt Zapotosky in Washington contributed to this report.
Live updates on the death toll, attack scenes and reactions around the world
Why is Brussels under attack?
At NATO headquarters, alert status raised just miles from attacks
Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world | 0 |
Damien Chazelle, the writer and director of the musical “La La Land,” never had any doubts about Los Angeles as an artistic canvas. From the film’s opening, with commuters dancing and singing on a congested freeway exit ramp, to the visually stunning final sequence, the city is depicted as a place where dreamers may struggle but where optimism also abounds. Growing up in New Jersey, Mr. Chazelle said, “I had some negative conceptions of Los Angeles, but I was willing to try something other than the East Coast because I wanted to do movies. ” He added: “For a few years, there were ups and downs, but I slowly became smitten. I had never lived in a city with palm trees, and now I’ve been here for almost nine and a half years. ” His debut directorial film, “Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench,” was first shown in 2009, followed by the drama “Whiplash” in 2014. Mr. Chazelle, who recently won the 2016 Golden Globe Award for best director for “La La Land,” recently discussed his current film, Los Angeles and some of his travel forays. Below are edited excerpts from that conversation. Q. In famously Southern California, what logistical issues did you face with the opening scene of “La La Land”? A. After searching for a filming location, we decided on the FasTrak ramp that connects Interstate 105 to Interstate 110, since it would be easier for the city to shut down. We rehearsed in parking lots, and were able to shut down the ramp to film on a Saturday and a Sunday. On both days, there was a heat wave. In the film, Mia and Sebastian, played by Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, visit the beloved Griffith Observatory. What was it like to shoot there? We were able to film there on a Monday, which is the only day that they’re closed, but you can’t change or touch anything. Filming isn’t allowed in the planetarium at the Griffith, so professional designers built a replica of the actual planetarium on a sound stage. However, we could light the Observatory on the outside. What’s the story behind the Rialto Theater in South Pasadena, where Mia and Sebastian watch the James Dean classic “Rebel Without a Cause”? The theater is used for special events, but it hasn’t been a functioning commercial movie theater in a while. [The Rialto closed in 2007.] It’s a beautiful old structure, inside and outside. What led you to film in nearby Pasadena? Pasadena is really wonderful. The city is one the best places for architecture in the Los Angeles area since so much has been preserved there. The Colorado Street Bridge [which features a scene with Mia and Sebastian] is one of those places. There are also the homes of silent movie stars. Pasadena seemed far away from where I was living. What has traveling been like since you’ve been promoting the movie internationally? There’s been a fair amount of travel. I’ve had a mini East Asia tour the film opens in China and Japan in February. I’d never been to Japan and had been dying to go there forever. My father is French, so I have a lot of relatives in Paris and France, which is nice. France is like a third home. When you’re headed out of town, what do you usually bring? Ever since I was a kid, I have been fond of long train trips. I like the idea of forced sitting time. I always bring a couple of books and headphones, and weigh down a backpack. If I have something to read and music to listen to, I’m fine. | 0 |
Just two months shy of the one-year anniversary of Rich s death, FOX 5 has learned there is new information that could prove these theorists right.Rod Wheeler, a private investigator hired by the Rich family, suggests there is tangible evidence on Rich s laptop that confirms he was communicating with WikiLeaks prior to his death.Now, questions have been raised on why D.C. police, the lead agency on this murder investigation for the past ten months, have insisted this was a robbery gone bad when there appears to be no evidence to suggest that.Wheeler, a former D.C. police homicide detective, is running a parallel investigation into Rich s murder. He said he believes there is a cover-up and the police department has been told to back down from the investigation. The police department nor the FBI have been forthcoming, said Wheeler. They haven t been cooperating at all. I believe that the answer to solving his death lies on that computer, which I believe is either at the police department or either at the FBI. I have been told both. When we asked Wheeler if his sources have told him there is information that links Rich to Wikileaks, he said, Absolutely. Yeah. That s confirmed. Wheeler also told us, I have a source inside the police department that has looked at me straight in the eye and said, Rod, we were told to stand down on this case and I can t share any information with you. Now, that is highly unusual for a murder investigation, especially from a police department. Again, I don t think it comes from the chief s office, but I do believe there is a correlation between the mayor s office and the DNC and that is the information that will come out [Tuesday].The Democratic National Committee staffer who was gunned down on July 10 on a Washington, D.C., street just steps from his home had leaked thousands of internal emails to WikiLeaks, law enforcement sources told Fox News.A federal investigator who reviewed an FBI forensic report detailing the contents of DNC staffer Seth Rich s computer generated within 96 hours after his murder, said Rich made contact with WikiLeaks through Gavin MacFadyen, a now-deceased American investigative reporter, documentary filmmaker, and director of WikiLeaks who was living in London at the time. FOX5DCHere is the tweet announcing the death of Gavin MacFayden only weeks before the U.S. presidential election:Gavin Macfadyen was mentor to Assange (and his closest friend in London), to WikiLeaks' Sarah Harrison, Joseph Farrell and many others. WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 23, 2016 I have seen and read the emails between Seth Rich and Wikileaks, the federal investigator told Fox News, confirming the MacFadyen connection. He said the emails are in possession of the FBI, while the stalled case is in the hands of the Washington Police Department.The revelation is consistent with the findings of Rod Wheeler, a former DC homicide detective and Fox News contributor and whose private investigation firm was hired by Rich s family to probe the case. Rich was shot from behind in the wee hours, but was not robbed. My investigation up to this point shows there was some degree of email exchange between Seth Rich and Wikileaks, Wheeler said. I do believe that the answers to who murdered Seth Rich sits on his computer on a shelf at the DC police or FBI headquarters. The federal investigator, who requested anonymity, said 44,053 emails and 17,761 attachments between Democratic National Committee leaders, spanning from January 2015 through late May 2016, were transferred from Rich to MacFadyen before May 21. FOX NewsWe reported on this story extensively. Here are some of our stunning findings over the past 10 months. It s pretty stunning that it took so long to find out about the e-mails on Rich s laptop: Conspiracy theories have been surrounding the murder of Seth Rich. They reached a new frenzy after the hacking of DNC e-mails led to the resignation of its chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz.Rich was beaten, shot and killed early on the morning of July 8 while he was walking home and talking on the phone to his girlfriend. Police have said they haven t determined if his murder was a botched robbery or something else. The killer or killers appear to have taken nothing from their victim, leaving behind his wallet, watch and phone.Wikileaks just confirmed murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich was the source of the DNC leak.Wikileaks released a series direct messages from US alleged Russian spy Guccifer 2.0 to actress model Robbin Young (according to Young).In the stream of texts the discussion leads to the DNC leaker.His name is Seth ** In November Julian Assange said Russia did not hack into the DNC servers. -h/t GP Here s the proof:Direct Messages from U.S. alleged Russian spy @GUCCIFER_2 to actress-model @robbin_young (according to the latter) https://t.co/uMsB9WgxRQ WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) April 8, 2017Actress Robbin Young claims she had given this information she received from Guccifer 2.0 to the authorities but, no one cared :https://twitter.com/Robbin_Young/status/850743524953702404Actress Robbin Young states that Guccifer 2.0 told her, i m eager to find facts about seth, i m sure it wasn t just a robbery. seth was assassinated. :Guccifer 2.0 said, "i'm eager to find fact about seth, i'm sure it wasn't just a robbery. seth was assassinated." #SethRich Robbin Young (@Robbin_Young) March 29, 2017In June 2016,the hacker Guccifer 2.0 claimed responsibility for breaking into the Democratic National Committee s servers, lifting opposition research the DNC had gathered, including a 200-page document focused on presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.The hacker s moniker is an homage to Guccifer, the nom de guerre of Romanian hacker Marcel Lazar who claimed a previous hack into Hillary Clinton s private email server and is now awaiting prosecution for cybercrimes. RTWhile Wikileaks Julian Assange was being interviewed by John Pilger, he brought up the death of Seth Rich. Watch Assange s strange and somewhat cagey reply.Here is part of the conversation:Julian Assange: Whistleblowers go to significant efforts to get us material and often very significant risks. As a 27 year-old, works for the DNC, was shot in the back, murdered just a few weeks ago for unknown reasons as he was walking down the street in Washington.Reporter: That was just a robbery, I believe. Wasn t it?Julian Assange: No. There s no finding. So I m suggesting that our sources take risks.Watch it again in slow motion below:Seth Rich s parents explain what happened only moments before his death. He was the Voter Expansion Data Director for the DNC. His parents say he was, Making sure everyone who wanted to vote, had the opportunity :Shortly after the killing, Redditors and social media users were pursuing a lead saying that Rich was en route to the FBI that fateful morning, apparently intending to speak to special agents about an ongoing court case possibly involving the Clinton family.More recently, Wikileaks s thousands of DNC emails and voice mails have piqued Reddit s interest, with Redditors combing through years of communications looking for any clue to Rich s murder.The theory is apparently based on Julian Assange s recent ITV appearance, where he scoffed at the idea that Russian hackers could be responsible for the data dump, and said that anyone within the Democrats organization could easily have sent Wikileaks the offending messages.Given that Rich as a DNC staffer presumably would have had some access to its servers, Reddit is absolutely positive Rich paid the ultimate price for exposing Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the DNC s crusade against Bernie Sanders. HeatstreetGo HERE for fascinating timeline of events leading up to the brutal murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich. | 1 |
1 |
|
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad said on Wednesday it was concerned by the closure of a local Kurdish broadcaster at the hands of Iraqi Kurdish security forces a day earlier. We are concerned by recent actions to curb the operations of some media outlets through force or intimidation, specifically yesterday s raid by Kurdistan Regional Government security forces of the NRT offices in Sulaimaniya, the embassy said in a statement. | 0 |
Maxine Waters said on MSNBC that there must be a probe into the unsubstantiated dossier that surfaced last month, alleging that Trump could be subject to blackmail from the Russians. The coverage they have on him, sex actions that s absolutely true, referring to the dossier s detailed description of claims Trump met with Russian prostitutes. They should really read it, understand it, analyze it, determine what s fact. If we do the investigation, then we will find the connections. And I do think that impeachment will be necessary, Rep. Maxine Waters claims on @MSNBC that the sex allegations about Trump in the Russian dossier are true. pic.twitter.com/cd5LNmL0eo Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) March 9, 2017 | 1 |
The modern N. B. A. era began in the 1980s with two if only narratives. The rivalry between Larry Bird and Magic Johnson was transmitted to the public through sportswriters who typecast Bird as the white country bumpkin who gritted his way to excellence and Johnson as the black, savant who whipped up his talents into the best show on the hardwood. The cities of Boston (parochial and solemn) and Los Angeles (flashy and morally suspect) were featured in supporting roles that echoed the best and worst traits of the main characters. The reality behind “Bird versus Magic” was mostly irrelevant. What mattered was that the choice you were supposed to make between them was laid out as as possible. In recent years, there has been a movement to replace these hoary old sports stories with an atomized landscape of numbers, stats and transactional analysis — and its adherents harbor a healthy amount of scorn for anyone who thinks differently. The move toward dispassionate stats is for the greater good sportswriting and fandom are too often unctuous and absurd and lend themselves to blanket moralizing in which the athlete is reduced to some lesson about life itself. If he does not hustle to first base on a ground ball, he becomes a for the insufficient work ethic of his entire generation. If he happens to be an immigrant or from a racial minority, he becomes a for his entire people. Despite the growing influence of the rationalists — the analysts and wonks who want to tear this all down — the mainstream sports industrial complex, especially in the loftier parts of the media, doesn’t share their vision. Narrative, with all its lies, still dominates. This has been a summer filled with silly sports schlock, spurred by NBC’s Olympic Games coverage, which carried on its tradition of dramatically lit, reels: a young athlete learns to swim after meeting a dolphin at a water park in Tarzana, Calif. a towheaded future equestrian rider falls in love with a horse in Darien, Conn. and so on. But the season’s story time had already started on July 4, when Kevin Durant, one of the most beloved players in the N. B. A. announced that he would be leaving the Oklahoma City Thunder for the Golden State Warriors. The expected take quake was set off, split along the usual lines. The new rationalists pointed out that Durant is a man and argued that nobody has any right to criticize any decision a man makes for himself and his family — before they quickly pivoted to their charts showing how Durant would change the Warriors’ expected win total. The traditionalists chanted their odes to loyalty, competitiveness and Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, who each played their entire careers with one team. In Oklahoma City itself, the reaction played out much as it had in Cleveland when LeBron James left. Fans ripped up Durant jerseys and delivered weepy testimonials to the powerful bonds between a city and its star athlete. Overnight, Durant went from fan favorite to just the latest in the N. B. A. ’s litany of “selfish” players like Allen Iverson, Dennis Rodman or LeBron James, people who have come to embody everything that’s wrong with America. The next episode in this melodrama came in early August, when the Thunder and their other great player, Russell Westbrook, agreed to a contract extension. (People had speculated that he would leave too.) There were a lot of reasonable fiscal reasons for Westbrook’s decision — within the N. B. A. ’s byzantine rules, it helped him maximize the money he could make over the rest of his career — and none of Westbrook’s other rumored destinations, whether Boston or New York or Los Angeles, guaranteed the success that Durant will surely enjoy with the Warriors. But Westbrook, who has mostly stayed quiet about Durant’s exit, will now be the living embodiment of every traditional thing that fans, callers and screaming TV heads have demanded from athletes. He is staying with the team with which he began his career, saving the relevance of professional basketball in Oklahoma. He is also spurning, at least for now, the impulse to join a superteam with other superstars. Westbrook has decided to go it alone, and every Dennis from Dumont or Paulie from Passaic who calls in to WFAN and asks the host Mike Francesa how he can possibly raise a son in a world where disloyal athletes strut around unpunished has a new hero. Durant’s departure for Golden State seemed to be a bellwether moment, not only in the potential fortunes of two basketball teams but also in the way that sports news is transmuted into fable that has its own relatable and lesson. The old, familiar moralizing, mainly delivered in rants about loyalty or cowardice or traditions by a on ESPN or Fox Sports, was met with a swift and forceful response by the rationalists. During the night of Durant’s announcement, in fact, it felt as if the counterreaction beat the reaction, as hundreds of rationalists tweeted against an opinion that hadn’t even yet been aired. Sean Newell, writing for Vice Sports (I am also a correspondent at Vice) voiced their frustration when he wrote: “No one in the world should care where Kevin Durant plays basketball, and they certainly shouldn’t care enough to scream about it on ESPN. But sportswriters, even though their job is to report on topics, write fiction. ” The problem with Newell’s critique is that nearly everyone who watches the N. B. A. except a small population of analytics wonks and insiders, really does care where Kevin Durant plays basketball. The zealotry of those in pursuit of some objective “truth” in sports, I’ve started to think, might be turning the entire spectacle into something that can no longer be recognized by a vast majority of fans. If you excise both fandom and the metaphorical weight of how the actions of an athlete might reflect on your own life, then what, exactly, are we watching? And why? The impulse to expunge all this and turn watching sports into an accounting exercise filled with insider jargon reflects some of the elitism that has entered our national political conversation. While neither the stakes nor the messages are analogous, the mechanism through which they are conveyed feels very much the same. It is, in essence, a between those who believe themselves to be in the know and the simps who lap up everything they watch on cable news. But not all narratives, whether political or athletic, are fictions, and there are still emotional and existential lessons that can be summoned by the sight of men and women chasing a ball around a field. There is ample ground between the current approach to N. F. L. news, for example, which amounts to treating it as either a stock ticker of microtransactions or a perpetual machine, and the attitude given expression earlier this month by John Miller, chief marketing officer for NBC’s Olympic Games coverage, to explain why his network relegated several key Olympic events to tape delay. “More women watch the Games than men,” Miller said, “and for the women, they’re less interested in the result and more interested in the journey. ” A defense of sports narratives does not have to accept Miller’s retrograde thinking. That it so often has is not proof that every telling is corrupted, but rather that the authors have mostly failed. Durant versus Westbrook will be next year’s dominant N. B. A. motif because it brings in the full breadth of the rich, if at times overblown, metaphors that have always driven the best sportswriting: loyalty versus the individual versus the empire and solidarity with the underdog versus the cynical efficiency of the superteam. The personalities of both players, on court and off, should be enough to compel our attention, supplemented by all the data analysis you could ever want. Even if we should balk at any easy moralizing, there’s no need to sacrifice a good story in the process. | 0 |
SANTO DOMINGO (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced high-level talks to ease tensions with Venezuela’s socialist government on Tuesday, just hours after he backed calls for a referendum that could force President Nicolas Maduro from office. Kerry said the talks would start immediately in Caracas and be led by Thomas Shannon, a veteran of U.S. diplomacy in the region. Attempts last year at dialogue between the ideological foes were stalled by Venezuela’s deepening crisis. The two countries have been embroiled in diplomatic hostilities since the administrations of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and U.S. President George W. Bush. Kerry said the goal was to go beyond “the old rhetoric.” “I’ve committed to see if this can work so let’s see if we can improve the relationship,” he told reporters, after huddling with his Venezuelan counterpart on the sidelines of an Organization of American States (OAS) meeting in the Dominican Republic. The talks would also be aimed at fostering dialogue between Venezuela’s government and opposition, Kerry said. Maduro welcomed the proposed talks and repeated his suggestion that the two sides restore ambassadors in each other’s capitals after an eight-year hiatus that began when Chavez expelled the U.S. envoy to Venezuela. “I propose to John Kerry ‘let’s designate ambassadors’, I am ready. They have ambassadors in Beijing, Vietnam and Havana, and they don’t have one in Caracas,” he said in a speech to teachers. Maduro proposed an ambassador in 2014 but U.S. President Barack Obama has not yet accepted his credentials. Once one of Latin America’s most prosperous nations, Venezuela has plunged into unrest and a harsh economic slowdown. Long lines for food and medicines have led to protests and opposition calls for a recall referendum to remove Maduro. That measure is allowed under the constitution, a point made by Kerry to reporters after he met Venezuelan Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez. Earlier in the day, in a speech to OAS delegates, Kerry gave his backing to the referendum push and called on Chavez’s political heirs to release political prisoners and respect fundamental rights. His comments to the 34 members of the main diplomatic body of the Americas marked the strongest show of support yet from the United States for the disputed referendum process. Venezuela’s opposition accuses the election council of stalling the recall at the behest of Maduro by arbitrarily changing criteria for requesting a recall vote. Maduro has said any recall against him would be in 2017 at the earliest, pushing back against opposition pressure. Several opposition politicians are in jail, notably hardline leader Leopoldo Lopez, who has a 14-year sentence for inciting 2014 anti-government protests that spiraled into violence killing more than 40 people. The government denies it holds political prisoners. Kerry’s comments drew a furious response from Rodriguez, who accused Washington and OAS chief Luis Almagro of “international bullying.” “Every day we have evidence of the secretary general’s bias in favor of sectors of the opposition who are seeking a coup in Venezuela,” she said. “I see now this is ordered by Washington. I know they are on Washington’s payroll to meddle in the domestic affairs of Venezuela,” she said, speaking through a translator. Kerry was more conciliatory after his first ever bilateral meeting with Rodriguez, saying the United States did not support a push by Almagro to suspend Venezuela from the OAS for alleged violations of the regional group’s “democratic charter.” “The United States is not taking that position, we are not pushing for a suspension. I don’t think that would be constructive,” he said. At Almagro’s behest, the OAS will hold a meeting later this month to initiate the process that could end in Venezuela’s suspension. But the former Uruguayan foreign minister appears isolated in the group, with even right-wing governments opposed to Maduro in the region balking at throwing Venezuela out. Venezuela and the United States have repeatedly gone through periods of diplomatic fighting followed by generally short-lived eras of reconciliation. Following Washington’s 2014 rapprochement with Cuba, Shannon met with a top Venezuelan Socialist Party official to improve ties with Caracas. The good mood soured within months when the United States criticized the sentence handed to opposition leader Lopez. | 0 |
Sunday on CBS s Face the Nation, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said the administration of President Donald Trump was probably was partially to blame, for the deadly chemical weapons attack in Syria.McCain referred to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson comments in March that the longer-term status of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will be decided by the Syrian people, McCain said, I think it probably was partially to blame. And Secretary Tillerson is basically saying the same thing after kind of contradicting himself and then saying the same thing argues vigorously for a plan and a strategy. As I said, again, taking this action, I support and was important. But we have got to have a strategy and a plan to follow through. Breitbart | 0 |
Donald Trump’s first foreign tour as President of the United States began in Saudi Arabia. [The purpose of the trip is to promote ties between the United States and the Arab world, as Trump seeks support in ramping up the war against the Islamic State. Great to be in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Looking forward to the afternoon and evening ahead. #POTUSAbroad pic. twitter. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 20, 2017, During the visit, Trump met with an array of Arab leaders, gave a speech on the threat of Islamic extremism and secured over $450 million in investment for military weapons. Trump also participated in the opening of the Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology, which aims to promote moderation and counter the spread of extremism across the Arab world. Another success from the trip was Ivanka Trump’s promotion of the World Bank’s Women Entrepreneurs Fund, to which Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates pledged a total of $100 million in funding. Trump participates in a traditional Arabian sword dance. (AP Vucci) Getty — In a speech in front of dozens of Muslim leaders, Trump challenged the Arab and Muslim world to foster peace by “honestly confronting the problem of Islamic extremism, and the Islamists, and Islamic terror of all kinds. ” (AP Vucci) During the inauguration of the Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology, Trump touched a brightly lit globe with Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz and Egypt’s president Abdel Fatah . You can follow Ben Kew on Facebook, on Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart. com | 0 |
November 6th, 2016 - Fort Russ News -
RT- Translated by Inessa Sinchougova
In a truly shocking twist, the Supreme Court of Austria has decided to acquit the Iraqi man, "that may not have realised the 10-year-old Austrian boy did not want to be sexually abused by him." Amir, 20, was visiting the Theresienbad pool in the Austrian capital of Vienna in December 2015, as part of a trip to encourage integration, when the incident occurred.
Europe - if you can't stand up for your children, who will? Of course there is the fact that Western Europe has supported the US in their violent destruction of the Middle East over the past 20 years. Is it a guilty conscience that seems to appease the blatant criminal activity on behalf of some newcomers? Or are they Soros puppets implanted into the judicial system that are at work?
Russia is a multicultural and multi-religious society, and has been for 1000 years. The law applies to everyone equally - whether you're a Crimean Tatar or a Slavic Russian - every Russian citizen is 'native' as such and subject to the same protocols.
Follow us on Facebook!
Follow us on Twitter!
Donate!
| 0 |
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The Iran nuclear deal must be changed if the United States is to remain in it, the top U.S. diplomat said on Tuesday, suggesting its key limits on the Iranian nuclear program must be extended. Making his debut appearance at the annual United Nations General Assembly, U.S. President Donald Trump accused Iran of exporting violence, bloodshed and chaos and of seeking to project its influence in Yemen, Syria and elsewhere in a region rife with sectarian conflicts between Sunni and Shi ite Muslims. We cannot let a murderous regime continue these destabilizing activities while building dangerous missiles, and we cannot abide by an agreement if it provides cover for the eventual construction of a nuclear program, Trump said. He saved his harshest words for the 2015 pact struck by Iran and six major world powers under which Tehran agreed to restrict its nuclear program in return for loosening economic sanctions. The Iran deal was one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into. Frankly, that deal is an embarrassment to the United States, and I don t think you ve heard the last of it - believe me, Trump said. His chief diplomat, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, went further, telling Fox News that the agreement must be changed or the United States could not stick with it. Tillerson said the sunset clauses, under which some of the deal s restrictions on Iran s nuclear program expire from 2025, were of particular concern. If we re going to stick with the Iran deal there has to be changes made to it. The sunset provisions simply is not a sensible way forward, he said. It s just simply ... kicking the can down the road again for someone in the future to have to deal with, he added. In contrast, French President Emmanuel Macron praised the agreement during his speech and said it was inconceivable to abandon it. Renouncing it would be a grave error, not respecting it would be irresponsible, because it is a good accord that is essential to peace at a time where the risk of an infernal conflagration cannot be excluded, Macron said. The French president said he understood U.S. concerns but thought the way to address them was to open up a negotiation designed to extend limits on its nuclear program beyond 2025. Macron and other supporters of the accord say weakening or scrapping the deal would add fuel to a regional powder keg and deter North Korea from negotiating on its nuclear program. The July 14, 2015 accord aims, for a decade, to extend the amount of time it would theoretically take Iran to produce enough fissile material for an atomic bomb - so-called breakout time - from several months to a minimum of one year. Critics of the deal, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, worry that, once the main restrictions on Iran s nuclear program expire in 10 to 15 years, Tehran will be in a position to quickly develop an atomic weapon, if it wishes. Iran responded angrily to Trump s remarks. Trump s ignorant hate speech belongs in medieval times - not the 21st Century UN - unworthy of a reply, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran s lead negotiator for the nuclear agreement, said on Twitter. The U.S. president must decide by Oct. 15 whether to certify that Iran is complying with the pact, a decision that could sink the deal. If he does not, the U.S. Congress has 60 days to decide whether to reimpose sanctions waived under the deal. Netanyahu was also unsparing in his criticism of the nuclear pact, though Israeli officials privately admit that having some restrictions on Iran s program are better than none. Change it, or cancel it. Fix it, or nix it, Netanyahu said in his U.N. speech, saying the most important change was to eliminate the sunset clauses. The Obama administration had said the deal would ensure long-term scrutiny of Iran to deter it from developing a bomb, a view echoed by Macron on Tuesday as he noted its monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) U.N. nuclear watchdog. Trump s pugnacious U.N. speech may empower hard-liners in Iran, who are pushing for global isolation and who discourage already wary foreign investors. His stance, unlike Obama s offer of an olive branch, could serve the hard-liners loyal to Iran s most powerful authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Such Khamenei allies, including Iran s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), some powerful clerics and influential politicians, are wary of any detente with the West which could imperil the Islamic Revolution and undermine their economic interests. The nuclear deal was negotiated with Iran by the United States, Russia, China, Britain, Germany and France. The six will meet with Iran at the ministerial level on Wednesday. | 1 |
Robert Creamer and his Democracy Partners consulting group sued conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe and his Project Veritas on Thursday in the District of Columbia for $1 million. [The lawsuit concerns an O’Keefe sting that exposed Creamer’s efforts to incite violence at Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign rallies to create a sense of “anarchy” around the candidate. O’Keefe’s work revealed that Creamer and his associates, who worked with the Democratic National Committee, were involved in a tactic called “” which involved provoking Trump supporters to lash out at them, and to film those reactions, with footage to be distributed to media outlets. The Project Veritas team also showed a Creamer associate describing a complex communications system he referred to as the “Pony Express,” which Democrats used to circumvent rules against coordination between political campaigns and super PACs. O’Keefe’s work resulted in Creamer being forced to step aside from his campaign activities — and also exposed his close connections to the Obama White House. Arguably, his reporting shifted the momentum in the campaign. Creamer’s complaint alleges that O’Keefe and Project Veritas “selectively edit … videotapes so as to distort and misrepresent what was said,” and complains that their efforts unfairly interfered with Democrats’ efforts to wreak havoc on the Trump campaign. The complaint also alleges: “The [Project Veritas] video was heavily edited and contained commentary by O’Keefe that drew false conclusions from the selectively edited videos, to charge that Plaintiffs were involved in a conspiracy to incite violence at rallies for Donald Trump … ”. As a result of O’Keefe’s exposés, Creamer’s complaint alleges, Democracy Partners lost valuable business contracts from political clients. Creamer and his company are seeking damages for alleged unlawful interception of oral communications, for civil conspiracy, and for fraudulent misrepresentation, among other torts. O’Keefe responded with a statement: Robert Creamer believes that by suing us, he can intimidate us. I will not be silenced — only over my dead body! We are on the right side of the law and will not stop exposing the truth. … This lawsuit further justifies the need to drain the swamp. Our army of guerrilla journalists, which grows daily, will continue to expose the malfeasance and corruption committed by these organizations. In fact, we will be deploying a new batch of freshly trained journalists next week to shine additional light on the cockroaches of the corrupt DC establishment. We will not be intimidated. We will not be silenced. We will find out who is funding this lawsuit. We will never stop exposing the truth. We will not back down. Project Veritas attorney Benjamin Barr added: “The First Amendment protects the rights of undercover journalists to expose exactly the sort of corruption captured in these videos. Veritas will assert its full First Amendment rights to defend itself in these proceedings. ” Joel B. Pollak is Senior at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. He is the of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak. | 0 |
We Are Change
In this video Luke Rudkowski covers more geopolitical moves and how the recent presidential election with Hillary Clinton is making the situation with Putin worse. The situation between these two super global powers is intensifying and becoming dangerous for both nations. As wikileaks keeps releasing more information the more pressure the DNC is putting against Russia instead of taking responsibility. For more invest in us on https://www.patreon.com/wearechange
Sources
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mt_z…
http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/20…
http://www.inquisitr.com/3225440/hill…
http://wearechange.org/putins-russian…
http://www.mirror.co.uk/tech/russia-t…
http://www.mintpressnews.com/wife-fbi…
http://www.breitbart.com/2016-preside…
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/…
https://twitter.com/Lukewearechange/s…
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa…
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-ne…
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10…
https://www.rt.com/news/364132-amnest…
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016…
https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/a…
http://time.com/4547219/nato-uk-us-tr…
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/…
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/27/eur…
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10…
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-…
http://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-fl…
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/7…
Support WeAreChange by Subscribing to our channel HERE http://www.youtube.com/subscription_c…
Visit our main site for more breaking news http://wearechange.org/
Patreon https://www.patreon.com/WeAreChange?a…
SnapChat: LukeWeAreChange
Facebook: https://facebook.com/LukeWeAreChange
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Lukewearechange
Instagram: http://instagram.com/lukewearechange
Rep WeAreChange Merch Proudly: http://wearechange.org/store
OH YEAH since we are not corporate or government WHORES help us out http://wearechange.org/donate
We take BITCOIN too
12HdLgeeuA87t2JU8m4tbRo247Yj5u2TVP
The post PUTIN’S LATEST ATTACK AGAINST HILLARY CLINTON AND THE U.S ESTABLISHMENT appeared first on We Are Change .
| 0 |
posted by Eddie
A White House petition to remove Soros-owned electronic voting machines has passed the 100k votes necessary for a response. Will America finally stand up to global elite rigging our elections? The U.K.-based company Smartmatic has sent voting machines to important battleground states across the US including Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Virginia. “Other jurisdictions affected are California, District of Columbia, Illinois, Louisiana, Missouri, New Jersey, Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin,” noted the Daily Caller . “Smartmatic Chairman Mark Malloch-Brown is a former U.N. official and sits on the board of Soros’ Open Society Foundations.” The discovery has caused concern among the US voting populace given Soros’ deep ties with Clinton. Soros Linked Voting Machines To Be Used In Key Battleground States
source: | 1 |
The Senate Republicans have attracted loads of criticism and backlash for being super shady and secretive while creating their latest version of the American Health Care Act and rightfully so. This has taken place behind closed doors, with very little information being let out to the American public. Luckily, some GOPers are taking a stand against it.Rep. Pete King (R-NY) didn t mince his words as he railed against his fellow conservative lawmakers. In an interview with Long Island radio host Jay Oliver earlier today, King went off on Senate Republicans and accused them of trying to hide something in a blistering rant. King said: Listen, there has to be private meetings all the time, but I think there should be more public debate on it. It looks like they re trying to hide something and it does add to conspiracy theories and everything else. Oliver suggested that the secrecy of the Republican Party over this made it look like Senate GOPers were trying to do something underhanded, and King couldn t agree more. Proving that there are some Republicans who actually do have spines, King said: This looks too secretive. It s going to put a cloud over the whole final product Keeping America and other politicians in the dark is a bad move for Senate Republicans, and will likely result in failure. Many Democrats and GOPers are highly concerned about what s being done in these Senate meetings, and many are openly condemning the drafting process. You can listen to King trash the Senate below:King has spoken his mind before, many times against his own party. King trashed the GOP a second time today when it came to the victory of Karen Handel last night in Georgia s special election. While many GOPers were celebrating, King criticized Trump for his Twitter behavior, and told the tweet-happy POTUS don t bother tweeting. Featured image via Win McNamee/Getty Images | 0 |
Once again, a mouthpiece for Donald Trump gets their ass handed to them for blatantly lying on the air.During her show on Saturday morning, MSNBC host Joy Reid had to frustratingly correct Trump supporter David Malpass for making false claims about Hillary Clinton.It began with Reid talking about the alleged pay-to-play scandal Republicans have been accusing the former Secretary of State of conducting in conjunction with the Clinton Foundation during her years in the post.Reid explained that if Donald Trump gave $100,000 to the Clinton Foundation which then went to fighting AIDS in Africa, which benefits those who get treatment. Reid pointed out that getting a phone call from Clinton aide Huma Abedin is not proof of pay-to-play.However, Donald Trump giving $25,000 to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi s campaign in exchange for getting the investigation against Trump University dropped in that state is the very definition of pay-to-play.Malpass tried to claim that there were $10 million contributions but when challenged to provide proof of that claim Malpass could not do so. Reid called out Malpass for lying and went on to explain that the Associated Press found that only 85 of the meetings that Clinton had with people who were donors but not one of those meetings occurred after a donation was made.The AP story was pilloried, Reid said, because they attempted to find pay-to-play and found nothing. Huma Abedin emailing you back is not getting something, Reid continued. It s Huma Abedin emailing you back. Malpass, however, desperately tried to pin something on Hillary Clinton and brought up her emails, which have nothing to do with the topic at hand. Reid called Malpass out again, but he continued to claim that the emails brought out the information about the Clinton Foundation. Malpass also claimed that Hillary Clinton has not held any press conferences but Reid corrected him again by pointing out that she held two last week.As Reid repeatedly shamed Malpass for conflating press conferences, emails and foundations, her other guest Kurt Eichenwald broke out in laughter because Malpass was clearly making false claims.By the end of the segment, a frustrated Reid admitted that her head hurts after having to debunk so much bullshit from Trump s minions.Here s the video via YouTube.Trump and his team are desperate to make anything Clinton does into a scandal. And that s why any claims they make that they are somehow winning this election are complete bullshit. A winning campaign does not have to stoop to telling outright lies to the media every day. But that is what Trump is doing because his poll numbers have imploded and his campaign has fallen off a cliff.Republicans have waged countless witch hunts using taxpayer money in an effort to sabotage the woman who stands in their way of absolute power and they have failed miserably because the investigations have always cleared Hillary Clinton of wrongdoing. Rather than admit that, Trump and his minions would rather repeat lies because it s all they have left.Featured image via screenshot | 0 |
Kid Rock has struck panic into the hearts of liberal politicians upon his announcement that he will be running for senate in Michigan.Kid Rock, whose real name is Robert James Ritchie, is from Romeo, Michigan and will be a force to be reckoned with in the upcoming election.U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren is already sounding the alarm with her Democratic base, warning a Senate run by Detroit bad boy Kid Rock could be the second coming of Donald Trump.Watch Fox News host, Tom Shillue tell panelists, If Kid Rock runs for Senate, he ll win :The Wasting Time and All Summer Long rap rocker-turned-country singer tweeted on Wednesday that he s running for U.S. Senate in Michigan. Although it s been largely dismissed so far as a publicity stunt, Warren isn t taking any chances with the longshot Republican. I know a lot of people are thinking: this is some sort of joke, right? Warren wrote in an email blast with the subject line Senator Kid Rock (R-MI). Well, she said, maybe this is all a joke but we all thought Donald Trump was joking when he rode down the escalator at Trump Tower and announced his campaign, too. And sure, maybe this is just a marketing gimmick for a new album or tour but we all thought Donald Trump was just promoting his reality TV show, too, she added.In her email, Warren included a link where people could donate to Michigan Democratic U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow and her own reelection campaign.A Warren campaign spokeswoman did not return repeated inquiries about how much the fundraising appeal has hauled in or the strategy behind it.But if the effort succeeds, other Democrats are likely to also cash in on a Rock candidacy remote as it may be to fill their own campaign coffers, said Larry Sabato, a political science professor at the University of Virginia. Political elites and activists who actually give money to campaigns keep up with all this stuff, he said. Plus, the most effective direct mail is often tied to something that just happened something that can be spun into a threat. Republican state Rep. Geoff Diehl, who will officially challenge Warren next month, blasted the email as proof that Warren is more concerned about crafting a bid for the White House. She uses any and every issue, whether it s a celebrity Republican or it s Hillary Clinton, to try to scare her support base into giving her more money so that she can reach that main goal I believe of running for president not of focusing on the concerns of her constituents in Massachusetts, said Diehl.Still, don t count him out, said Saul Anuzis, the former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party. He s well-liked, said Anuzis. He s a big proponent of Detroit and somebody who s put his money where his mouth is investing back home. Boston HeraldKid Rock is taking a page from the Donald Trump playbook. He s already responding to #FakeNews on his website. | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Wednesday again raised the possibility of a U.S. government shutdown - blaming Democrats for that possible outcome - one day before he is due to host Republican and Democratic congressional leaders for talks on spending bills. Trump and Congress are facing a deadline of Friday at midnight to pass fresh spending legislation. If they cannot agree on the terms, parts of the federal government could shut down. Late on Wednesday, a bill advanced in the House of Representatives to extend current federal funding through Dec. 22, with the chamber expected to take up the bill on Thursday. If that measure clears the House and Senate, as expected, major fights are in the offing over the next funding bill, which could fund the government until sometime in January. Trump’s warning about a shutdown came as conservative House members pushed for increases in military spending along with either a freeze or reduction in domestic programs. Their bid is likely to be rejected by Democrats, who make up a minority in Congress, and could further complicate months of behind-the-scenes negotiations by congressional leaders aimed at figuring out government spending through the end of this fiscal year on Sept. 30, 2018. While the House potentially could pass upcoming spending bills without any Democratic support, that tactic would not work in the Senate where procedural rules give Democrats bargaining power. As a condition of backing new spending, many Democrats have demanded legislative protections for the nearly 700,000 undocumented immigrants who were brought into the United States as children. Trump pushed back, saying it could set the stage for impasse. “The Democrats are really looking at something that is very dangerous for our country,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “They are looking at shutting down.” House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi countered in a tweet: “President Trump is the only person talking about a government shutdown. Democrats are hopeful the president will be open to an agreement to address the urgent needs of the American people and keep government open.” The infighting came as Republican congressional leaders labored to demonstrate that they can govern and spare the country the chaos of a government shutdown at Christmas time that likely would not sit well with voters. A partial government shutdown would leave “essential” services operating, but could disrupt programs ranging from the operation of national parks to educational programs and scientific research. A Politico/Morning Consult opinion poll found that 63 percent of voters want Congress to avoid any shutdown, with 18 percent in favor if it helps lawmakers achieve policy goals. In October 2013, conservative Republicans used the need to pass a funding bill to try to force repeal of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. They failed but in the process forced a 17-day disruption of many federal agency activities. The end-of-year fight over appropriations, which should have been settled nine weeks ago, is attracting a series of controversial add-ons from both Republicans and Democrats. Republicans want to add as much as tens of billions of dollars to military spending this year and impose new work requirements for some recipients of Medicaid benefits, the healthcare program for the poor and disabled. Democrats want to attach the immigration measure and a restoration of Obamacare subsidy payments for low-income people that Trump terminated. Both parties seek additional disaster aid for Puerto Rico, Texas, Florida and other states. Republican Representatives Mark Meadows, who heads the House Freedom Caucus, and Representative Mark Walker, chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, are touting the effort to pump up Pentagon spending without any increases to non-defense programs. But Democrats have argued that inaction on the non-defense side of the ledger would usher in a new round of automatic spending cuts for those programs next month, short-changing programs that fight opioid addiction, fund medical research, veterans programs and an array of other activities. | 0 |
We all know that there is no way to be a scientist and a creationist at the same time. Science deals in facts, creationism deals in fantasy. So when the peer-reviewed, scientific journal PLOS ONE recently published a paper that claimed God designed our hands, the backlash was swift and loud.The paper was written by a team of scientists from China and Worcester, Massachusetts in order to better understand hand coordination. The abstract states, It is not understood which biomechanical characteristics are responsible for hand coordination and what specific effect each biomechanical characteristic has. But the abstract also contained something that made PLOS readers (and, at least, one editor) so angry the journal eventually retracted the paper, it said:The explicit functional link indicates that the biomechanical characteristic of tendinous connective architecture between muscles and articulations is the proper design by the Creator to perform a multitude of daily tasks in a comfortable way.The body of the paper mentions the Creator two more times, and the conclusion said:In conclusion, our study can improve the understanding of the human hand and confirm that the mechanical architecture is the proper design by the Creator for dexterous performance of numerous functions following the evolutionary remodeling of the ancestral hand for millions of years.WOW. Pretty outrageous right? How in the world did a scientific journal allow that to slip by them? Well, that s exactly what PLOS readers wanted to know. According to Vox:On the PLOS website, many angry readers called for the retraction of the article or an amendment of the line. Many of PLOS s own editors were fuming. One wrote in a comment, The article should be retracted and the handling editor should be dismissed. As an Editor for this journal, I am appalled. However, the Chinese scientists who wrote the paper said it was all just a big misunderstanding. They claimed that a language barrier is really to blame and they didn t mean to imply that God is to thank for creating our hands. Ming-Jin Liu, the leader author of the study said that the team actually meant nature. She explained, Our study has no relationship with creationism. English is not our native language. Our understanding of the word Creator was not actually as a native English speaker expected We will change the Creator to nature in the revised manuscript. I can understand how that could happen, but that doesn t excuse PLOS ONE s editors for publishing something with such a glaring error. That absolutely should have been caught before it went up on the site and it really hurts the journal s credibility. We should be able to go to this site and know that we aren t going to come across any papers that imply creationism is legitimate. It s not, no matter how much the Christian-right fights to make it so.Featured image via Facebook | 0 |
WASHINGTON -- Anyone who wants to understand the current state of the Democratic Party should pay close attention to what happened this week in the House of Representatives, where Democrats cut down a GOP-backed Wall Street deregulation bill. In response, the bill's supporters avoided talking about who the legislation would have helped (hint: two big banks), focusing instead on calling its victorious opponents a bunch of flip-floppers.
"The atmosphere is a little bit different," Himes said. "I think there were 35 Democrats who voted yes. On similar legislation in the last Congress, that number was more like 75 or so. So yes, there were some folks who looked at the same thing this Congress and thought that they felt differently about it."
Actually, 95 Democrats supported a very similar bill as recently as September. Both bills were 11-point packages chipping away at the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law. The most serious attack of the bunch came in the form of a partial two-year delay of the Volcker Rule, which would ban banks from speculating in securities markets with taxpayer money. The bill would have allowed Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase to hold onto almost $50 billion in risky corporate debt packages known as collateralized loan obligations through 2019. Since that perk wasn't included in the September version of the bill, the alleged flip-floppers can make a case that this time around, things just went too far.
But that doesn't seem to be what's really going on among today's Democrats. For one thing, Democrats approved a previous two-year delay of the same Volcker Rule provision last spring, pushing it to 2017, and dozens of House Democrats spent much of 2013 and 2014 lining up to support bill after bill that dealt blows to the party's second-biggest policy achievement of the Obama era.
This infuriated financial reform advocates. In isolation, many of these bills would have meant only minor trouble for Dodd-Frank. Others, however, were quite serious, and collectively, they functioned as a repeal strategy that may ultimately prove more effective than the GOP's straightforward assault on Obamacare. They never became law because then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) didn't bring them up in the Senate, but with Republicans now in control of the Senate, that firewall is gone.
The Democratic domestic policy agenda is remarkably uniform across the caucus, with one major exception. Nearly every House Democrat supports same-sex marriage, stronger environmental protections and increasing the minimum wage. But on bank reform, the party remains divided. Things have been shifting lately, however, and the 44 Democrats who switched their votes between September and January show which way the wind is blowing. They're listed at the bottom of this article. As for the other supporters of the September bill, 12 aren't in Congress anymore -- a politically significant point in its own right -- and four didn't vote.
There's nothing inherently terrible about flip-flopping. Historically, it's a pretty important part of the legislative process, on everything from the Democratic Party's embrace of the civil rights movement in the 1960s to the passage of the Wall Street bailout in 2008. Even Himes, mourning his defeat on C-SPAN, noted that a lot of people who thought unfettered finance was a good idea in the late 1990s recanted after the banking crash.
Elections, in particular, have a way of changing politicians' opinions, and November was horrible for Democrats in almost every possible way. Economic policy factors stuck with a lot of liberals. Ballot initiatives to increase the minimum wage passed all over the country in districts blue and red, even as Democrats took a beating everywhere. Exit poll data showed that the economy remained the most important issue to voters (as it has in every election since 2008), and shepherded in Republicans, even though a robust majority didn't think the GOP had a plan to make things better.
The public is still angry about the bank bailouts. And even with the economy showing signs of improvement, voting for more Wall Street financial aid is an easy way to convince many constituents that you aren't playing for their team.
All of that came to a head in the December vote on a major government funding bill. When top negotiators from both parties included a provision subsidizing risky derivatives trading in the package, many Democrats who had been quietly going along with the piecemeal dismantling of Dodd-Frank began trying to take down the spending bill over the bank perk. They came pretty close, and the final events of the vote -- President Barack Obama and JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon personally lobbying lawmakers for support -- only added fuel to the bank reformers' fire.
They appear to be picking up converts, as demonstrated by the 44 Democrats who came out against the Volcker Rule delay Wednesday. Several of those 44 were frequent Wall Street supporters in the last Congress -- House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and Reps. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.). Greg Meeks (D-N.Y.) and Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) stand out as interesting changes.
Of course, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) whipped Democrats hard on Wednesday to oppose the Volcker Rule delay, and issued a statement after the vote blasting the bill as a GOP rip-off of the American people. Pelosi is obviously a powerful person in the caucus, and when Republicans bring the same Volcker Rule bill up again next week under rules that will guarantee its passage, she'll have less leverage, and some of the financial reform converts may revert to backing big banks. | 1 |
This IS NOT heat related. #HillarysHealth pic.twitter.com/PFNfCEVFrV John Cardillo (@johncardillo) September 11, 2016 | 0 |
LIMA (Reuters) - Peru’s president-elect Pedro Pablo Kuczynski said amid laughter on Tuesday that his government would sever ties with the United States if Republican Donald Trump wins the U.S. presidential election in November. Kuczynski, a 77-year-old former investment banker who won the Andean country’s tight runoff race earlier this month, said he mentioned his worries about a Trump presidency to U.S. President Barack Obama on a congratulatory phone call. Asked by a reporter what would happen to relations with the United States if Trump wins, a laughing Kuczynski said “we’re going to grab a saw and cut them off!” The presumptive Republican nominee in the race to succeed Obama, Trump has sparked criticism across Latin America for his anti-immigrant rhetoric, especially in Mexico where President Enrique Pena Nieto has compared his campaign to the rise of Adolf Hitler. Trump is a threat to the region “because he wants to put up a wall between the United States and Latin America and make Mexicans pay for it!” Kuczynski said in reference to Trump’s proposal for stemming the flow of undocumented immigrants and drugs across the southern U.S. border. Peru is a leading global supplier of copper and gold. It also shares the dubious distinction with neighboring Colombia of being one of the world’s leading producers of cocaine. Peru and the United States implemented a free trade agreement in 2009 and are both signatories of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, which Trump has criticized. | 1 |
Post was not sent - check your email addresses! Email check failed, please try again Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. %d bloggers like this: | 1 |
Pandering Hillary just took a YUGE hit!Republican Donald Trump is surging with African American voters and gaining more support from Latino voters than Mitt Romney and John McCain.The latest LA Times Daybreak poll has Hillary up by just six-tenths of a point.Trump is surging with black voters and doing better with Latino voters than Romney or McCain.In the last ten presidential election cycles the highest black vote share for a Republican was 12% for Bob Dole in 1996. Trump has 14.6% of the black vote in today s LA Times poll.Here are just a few examples of support for Trump from the Black and Hispanic community:Black Votes Matter That's why people are leaving the Democratic Plantation of chains! #SelfMade #Trump2016 Voters pic.twitter.com/lnQjlVswf9 Florida Street Team (@ChatRevolve) August 15, 2016#LatinosForTrump want #HillaryClinton in Jail where she belongs for lying to #Latinos es Mala la vieja #Trump2016 pic.twitter.com/tEWXt5mScF Florida Street Team (@ChatRevolve) August 14, 2016#FireTrumpIn4Words Latinos Are Voting Trump #Trump2016 #MAGA #Miami #Ohio #PA #Virginia #BlacksForTrump pic.twitter.com/8i1Mx97LqU Florida Street Team (@ChatRevolve) August 13, 2016If Donald Trump captured 25 percent of the African American vote he would win in a landslide.And Trump has 26.7% of the Latino vote.Mitt Romney gained 21 percent of the Latino vote in the 2012 election. Senator John McCain received 23 percent of the Latino vote in the 2008 election. Via: Gateway Pundit | 1 |
This isn t just any church organization, this is a church organization that takes in $45 MILLION in taxpayer funds every year! Why do we give them so much money? Because they re bringing MOSTLY MUSLIM refugees into our country where they ll get housing, food, clothing, education and spending money with MORE of OUR tax dollars. They ll also be fast-tracked to citizenship. What s the end goal? The fundamental transformation of America Ohio peace and justice groups getting ready to break the law and hide aliens from Obama illegal alien raids, click here.The recent Obama Administration order to round up illegal aliens (a tiny number!) and deport them is simply a ploy to fire up the No Borders movement, the Democrat base, in this all important election year.Church World Service will be hiding illegal aliens!Here is a story about the hard Left Church World Service, a federal refugee resettlement contractor, which uses $45 million of your dollars every year to change America by changing the people, is setting up hiding places throughout America where illegal aliens can be placed out of the reach of federal ICE agents.There should be a law, if you break federal immigration law, you lose your federal funding (come on wimps in Congress!).They want to resurrect the glory days (as they saw them) where churches broke the law and helped Central Americans get into America and then hid them until they could be spread out to towns across the US. It was called The Sanctuary Movement.***It is so apparent that this deportation order is part of a Democrat strategy, most likely cooked up in the White House, because (have you noticed!) no one blasts Obama personally (as they would if this were George Bush or Donald Trump).Religious groups and activists vowed Wednesday to offer refuge to illegal immigrants who are the targets of ongoing federal raids meant to combat a new wave of border-crossing from Central America.The announcement recalled the sanctuary movement of the 1980s that provided safe haven to several thousand people fleeing civil wars in El Salvador and Guatemala, with churches in Los Angeles, Chicago and other cities sometimes filled with people seeking asylum in the United States.At the start of the year, the Obama administration launched a large-scale effort targeting those who have already been ordered to leave the country. About 120 adults and children have been apprehended in raids in several states.Central American illegal aliens are NOT refugees. They do not fit the long-understood definition that a refugee or asylum seeker must prove they would be persecuted if they returned to their home country.Escaping poverty or run-of-the-mill crime is not persecution, but these NO Borders activists have been for years attempting to blur the definition. And, that is mostly because when someone is defined as a refugee all welfare goodies flow their way and they can then bring in the family they left behind. (Of course the WaPo isn t going to explain any of that to its readers!).The effort, which is expected to include several hundred more apprehensions, has drawn sharp criticism from those who advocate for undocumented immigrants. They argue that Central Americans who are entering the country illegally should be offered the same protections extended to Syrian refugees.Via: Refugee Resettlement WatchHere is the list of churches affiliated with the radical Church World Services group:Member CommunionsAfrican Methodist Episcopal Church African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church Alliance of Baptists American Baptist Churches USA Armenian Church of America (including Diocese of California) Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Christian Methodist Episcopal Church Church of the Brethren Community of Christ The Coptic Orthodox Church in North America Ecumenical Catholic Communion The Episcopal Church Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Friends United Meeting Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America Hungarian Reformed Church in America International Council of Community Churches Korean Presbyterian Church in America Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church Mar Thoma Church Moravian Church in America National Baptist Convention of America National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc. National Missionary Baptist Convention of America Orthodox Church in America Patriarchal Parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church in the U.S.A. Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends Polish National Catholic Church of America Presbyterian Church (USA) Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc. Reformed Church in America Serbian Orthodox Church in the U.S.A. and Canada The Swedenborgian Church Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch Ukrainian Orthodox Church in America United Church of Christ The United Methodist Church | 1 |
21st Century Wire says This week an unverified 35-page document concerning President-elect Donald Trump s alleged ties to Russia had been published by Buzzfeed. The so-called dossier, that levied unfounded accusations against Trump was initially given oxygen by CNN and included an unsubstantiated sexual blackmail scenario contained within the leaked US intelligence summary.It is too early to tell exactly what the implications of the leaked intelligence dossier will be but there s no doubt that it has compounded an already tense relationship between Trump, the FBI, CIA and Trump s political rivals moving forward THE DOSSIER During Trump s first press conference he fired back at Buzzfeed for publishing unconfirmed intelligence claims. (Image Source: Slate)Earlier this week, during the president-elect s first press conference, Trump admonished the website Buzzfeed (part of the NBC Universal media empire) for publishing the intelligence dossier, even calling the site a failing pile of garbage at the press conference. The over-the-top intelligence report sent a shockwave through social media and mainstream outlets alike, mostly due to the salacious nature of the unproven details it contained.Following the dossier s release, Trump refused to take a question from the CNN reporter Jim Acosta. The day before, CNN had been heavily promoting the fake dossier published by Buzzfeed. Watch as the president-elect calls the mainstream media outlet fake news While much has been made of Buzzfeed s role in publishing unconfirmed anonymous claims (and rightfully so), the public should also wonder why the US intelligence community would leak such information which was financed by Trump s political rivals a spiked dossier that peddled sordid sexual perversions wrapped-up in an alleged Russian blackmail plot.The Trump-Russia dossier also appears to contain outright fabrications in the case of Trump s lawyer, Michael Cohen, who according to the dossier, he allegedly held secret meetings with Kremlin officials in Prague. This doctored intelligence, turned out to be false.Donald Trump took to social media to describe the allegations even blasting the intelligence community s role in the so-called dossier According to one report by the New York Times, the dossier was produced by the Washington-based PR firm Fusion GPS, a Democratic party friendly firm that has also been employed by Planned Parenthood. During the course of 2016, Trump heavily criticized Planned Parenthood over controversial issues associated with the NGO s abortion practices.In October of 2015, the staunchly left-wing outlet, Mother Jones skirted around the apparent Russian-Trump related memo/dossier, which had already been circulating on Capitol Hill and was hinted at by former Democratic Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, just before the 2016 presidential election: On Monday, NBC News reported that the FBI has mounted a preliminary inquiry into the foreign business ties of Paul Manafort, Trump s former campaign chief. But Reid s recent note hinted at more than the Page, or Manafort affairs. And a former senior intelligence officer for a Western country who specialized in Russian counterintelligence tells Mother Jones that in recent months he provided the bureau with memos, based on his recent interactions with Russian sources, contending the Russian government has for years tried to co-opt and assist Trump and that the FBI requested more information from him. The Duran adds the following details outlining Reid s role and that of US Senator John McCain in spreading the contents of the dossier: Mother Jones writer David Corn referred to the documents in a late October column. Harry Reid spokesman Adam Jentleson tweeted Tuesday that the outgoing Senate Democratic leader had seen the documents before writing a public letter to FBI director James Comey about Trump s ties to Russia. And CNN reported Tuesday that Arizona Republican John McCain gave a full copy of the memos to FBI Director James Comey on December 9, but that the FBI already had copies of many of the memos. Flash forward to January 10th, where The Washington Post primed the public just prior to the dossier release on Buzzfeed, and after a string of delays concerning an apparent US intelligence briefing that alleged Russia s meddling in the 2016 US presidential election cycle: A classified report delivered to President Obama and President-elect Donald Trump last week included a section summarizing allegations that Russian intelligence services have compromising material and information on Trump s personal life and finances, U.S. officials said.The officials said that U.S. intelligence agencies have not corroborated those allegations but believed that the sources involved in the reporting were credible enough to warrant inclusion of their claims in the highly classified report on Russian interference in the presidential campaign. Trump, however, replied Tuesday night with a tweet declaring: FAKE NEWS A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT! Early Wednesday, he accused the intelligence community of taking one last shot at me. In a shocking turn of events, it was revealed that elements of the Trump-Russia dossier seemed to have been passed through media and intelligence connected insiders on Capitol Hill for months.Furthermore, the dossier appears to have been compiled by an ex-MI6 spy named Christopher Steele of the security firm Orbis Business Intelligence Ltd who was hired by PR firm Fusion GPS who had previously defended Planned Parenthood over unsafe and ethically questionable abortion practices.On January 11th, the NY Times reported the following developments: Last June, after evidence of Russian hacking of Democratic targets surfaced, Fusion GPS hired a retired British intelligence officer, Christopher Steele, to investigate Mr. Trump s ties to Russia. The US intelligence dossier implicating Trump, also revealed a decidedly politically charged backdrop, while suggesting rather ridiculously, that Russia s political influence on Trump has spanned some five years by courting the president-elect with various sweetener business deals supposedly offered via the Kremlin. The allegedly damning report also contends that Trump was supplied with a regular flow of intelligence on the Democratic party and other political rivals. But perhaps the real kicker was the dossier s conclusion that Russian spies had collated a mostly innocuous report regarding Hillary Clinton as stated by the UK s Guardian.QUESTION: Was the Trump-Russia dossier a part of a deep state smear campaign, or is there more to it?The NY Times included the following details, adding to a growing list of those who would be politically motivated to help produce such a report concerning Trump: After it became clear that Mr. Trump would be the Republican nominee, Democratic clients who supported Hillary Clinton began to pay Fusion GPS for this same opposition research. Glenn Greenwald from the Intercept published the following article that provided analysis of the politically motivated dossier. Here s a passage of Greenwald s scathing review of the intelligence crafted hit-piece on Trump and Russia this week: But [the left] cheering for the CIA and its shadowy allies to unilaterally subvert the U.S. election and impose its own policy dictates on the elected president is both warped and self-destructive. Empowering the very entities that have produced the most shameful atrocities and systemic deceit over the last six decades is desperation of the worst kind. Demanding that evidence-free, anonymous assertions be instantly venerated as Truth despite emanating from the very precincts designed to propagandize and lie is an assault on journalism, democracy, and basic human rationality. And casually branding domestic adversaries who refuse to go along as traitors and disloyal foreign operatives is morally bankrupt and certain to backfire on those doing it. In late October, I published the following report regarding the alleged DDoS attack in America and the US establishment s bogus Russian election hack claims all timed perfectly with the rise and eventual nomination of Donald Trump. Tie this thread in with the recent dossier allegations against the president-elect and you can see what could be a potential last-ditch effort in the form of a PR created coups d tat: In this age of America s new and improved trial by media format, you can expect a litany of unfounded accusations, along with the usual anti-Russia hyperbole and waving fingers at Washington s new go-to scapegoat Russian president Vladimir Putin.The likelihood of Russia or any other country being involved in this heavily coordinated DDoS incident falls flat, when you consider that the US media has been floating the blame Russia meme for months now, and even more conveniently during this 2016 US presidential election cycle, led by Vice President Joe Biden, and of course, the Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton all blaming the Kremlin for both the DNC Leaks and the Wikileaks email dump.Indeed, as you look back at NY Times articles since the summer, the stage was being set to implant the idea of an alleged Russian cyber war being waged at the US, principally charging that they would meddle with the US presidential elections in 2016 by aiding Donald Trump. Here s the NY Times building the case for Washington, seemingly without the burden of proof: An unusual question is capturing the attention of cyber specialists, Russia experts and Democratic Party leaders in Philadelphia: Is Vladimir V. Putin trying to meddle in the American presidential election?Until Friday, that charge, with its eerie suggestion of a Kremlin conspiracy to aid Donald J. Trump, has been only whispered. In August, the western media s claims against Russia hit overdrive, when the New York Times s Moscow bureau was the target of an attempted cyberattack this month. But so far, there is no evidence that the hackers, believed to be Russian, were successful. Flash forward to September here and here, as well as early October in the lead up to President Obama s decree, the Clinton-friendly outlet the NY Times had all but solidified the Russian cyber/hack claims once again, without any definitive proof. Here s a response from Russian leadership featured on RT news discussing revelations surrounding the Trump-Russia dossier:The Kremlin said on Friday that what Buzzfeed had published didn t merit to be called a report. We have finished the discussion of this fabrication, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov explained. This is far from being the first such falsehood published, and it is, moreover, really quite base. One simply shouldn t pay any attention to it, as it is now appealing to the emotional frenzy that is dominating in America at the moment. Politicians from both parties have accused Trump of being in cahoots with Russia, which the Obama administration has accused of waging a massive campaign to undermine the election and swing it in favor of Trump by hacking the Democratic Party s computers and leaking the stolen emails to the whistleblower site WikiLeaks.Russia has repeatedly denied the accusations, calling them nonsense, while the White House has refused to provide any concrete evidence to support its allegations, claiming it was necessary to keep it secret in order to protect the sources and methods of the intelligence communities.UPDATE* News Talk Florida disclosed the following alternative theory behind the most salacious details of the Trump-Russia dossier as told to well-known radio host Michael Savage: Thursday on WWBA 820 AM the Michael Savage s radio show there was a caller who was claiming to represent the Internet forum 4chan. the called who called himself John, insisted his site was the origin of the fictional 35 page dossier painting a very salacious story about President-elect Donald Trump and reported in detail by BuzzFeed on Tuesday. A caller named John, told veteran radio host Savage that We [4chan] expected some garbage outfit like BuzzFeed to pick it up, or maybe the New York Times. We didn t expect government entities to take interest in our fan-fiction. According to Savage, 4chan s claim is that the phony story was sent to veteran Republican strategist Rick Wilson, a supporter of the presidential campaign of former CIA officer Evan McMullin, who then put it in the hands of the CIA. It s hard to verify all of 4chan s claims but this latest development does add another intriguing layer to the Trump-Russia intelligence dossier.Here s a YouTube clip featuring Michael Savage with John on Savage Nation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4CsyXNHbBYQUESTION: Are the neoliberals and neocons in Washington working to unseat Trump through a made up honey pot plot or is this just one aspect of a larger scheme against the president-elect?Ron Paul Institute examines John McCain s role in the dodgy Trump-Russia dossier below . Daniel Mcadams Ron Paul Institute We all know what money laundering is. When you need to hide the fact that the money in your possession comes by way of nefarious sources, you transfer it through legitimate sources and it appears clean on the other end. It s standard practice among thieves, extortionists, drug dealers, and the like.The same practice can even be used to clean intelligence that comes by dubious sources, and sometimes even US Senators may involve themselves in such dark activities. Case in point US Senator John McCain (R-AZ), whose virulent opposition to Donald Trump is outmatched only by his total dedication to fomenting a new cold (or hot?) war with Russia.While the world was caught up in the more salacious passages from a purported opposition research report on Donald Trump showing all manner of collusion with Putin s Russia and Russia s possession of blackmail-able kompromat on Trump something very interesting was revealed about the custody of the information. The dossier on Trump seemed to follow two chains of custody. One involved the media, which in October were given and encouraged to publish the report by the authors of the report (or their sponsors), purportedly a former British intelligence officer working for a private intelligence company. Only David Corn of Mother Jones bit, and his resulting story picked over the report to construct a mess of innuendo on Trump s relation to Russia that was short on any evidence.The other chain of custody is what interests us. Remember, we have a dubious report constructed for the purpose of discrediting Donald Trump, which was first commissioned by one of his Republican primary rivals and later completed under the patronage of someone in Hillary s camp. It was created for a specific political purpose, which may have tainted its reception among more objective governmental sources had that been known. Enter John McCain. According to media reports, the dossier was handed to Sen. McCain again, a strong Trump opponent and proponent of conflict with Russia by a former UK ambassador (who presumably received it from the source, a former British intelligence officer).Senator McCain then felt duty-bound to bring this intelligence report directly (and privately) to the personal attention of FBI Director James Comey. From this hand-off to Comey, the report then became part of the Intelligence Community s assessment of Russian interference in the US presidential election.Senator McCain is the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, one of the most powerful members of the US Senate. Consider the impact of being handed a strange report by some private intelligence-firm-for-hire or a media outlet versus being handed a report by one of the most powerful men in the US government. McCain s involving himself in the case gave the report a sense of legitimacy that it would not otherwise have had. Was this laundering intentional on his part? We do not know, but given his position on Trump and Russia that possibility must be considered.More from the the Ron Paul Institute here .READ MORE MSM LIES AT: 21st Century Wire MSM FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE NOW & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Near the end of President Donald Trump’s rocky first year in office, White House aides view imminent victory on a tax overhaul as a starting point to strengthen his weak approval ratings ahead of key congressional elections next November. Some Republicans said any effort at a political turnaround must include reining in Trump’s habit of lashing out at critics on Twitter. White House aides said they recognized that Trump’s poll numbers needed to start rising to limit the damage in 2018 elections in which his fellow Republicans’ continued control of Congress will be at stake. A Democratic takeover of the House of Representatives and Senate could jeopardize Trump’s agenda. “We have to grow, we have to move up, and I think having more successes like the tax vote will be important to us,” said a senior White House official. Administration officials said Trump would seek to use momentum generated from the biggest tax rewrite in 30 years to help propel other legislative priorities, including an infrastructure program and welfare reform. Final passage of the Republican tax bill is expected on Wednesday in what would be Trump’s first major legislative victory since taking office in January. But the tax bill carries risks. Republicans insist it will boost the economy and job growth. Democrats condemn it as a giveaway to corporations and the rich. In a Reuters/Ipsos poll, some 52 percent of adults said they opposed the tax plan, while 27 percent supported it. Unless Trump practices greater discipline, some Republican strategists see disaster looming in the congressional elections, in which a third of the 100-member Senate and all 435 seats in the House will be up for grabs. “Stop tweeting and start the new year with a new level of message discipline. Just try it. It’ll work. And you’ll get those poll numbers back up,” said Republican strategist Scott Reed. “They’ve got to focus on that job approval number because it’s a historic death watch for midterm elections. The record is strong. His discipline is key for year two,” Reed said. Trump has repeatedly caused controversy with early morning tweets, particularly those aimed at individuals. He raised hackles recently when he tweeted that Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand “would do anything” for campaign donations. “There are definitely moments that we’d all like to see stop,” one senior aide said. “Some of the early morning stuff has not been helpful over the last few weeks.” There has been some talk in the White House and among Trump’s outside advisers about hiring a senior political adviser akin to former President Barack Obama’s political aide David Axelrod or former President George W. Bush’s adviser Karl Rove. The White House political director, Bill Stepien, is seen as a more data-driven adviser. Trump, who sees himself as his own strategist, does not have anyone steeped in politics like his former White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus, or former chief strategist Steve Bannon. Aides said there was some discussion of getting Trump into events with smaller settings in order to show a more personal side of the president. His standard appearance is to go to an event, deliver a speech to a big crowd and leave. Trump is up against a historical trend in which the party that holds the White House typically loses seats in the first congressional elections after a president’s initial two years in office. Democratic President Bill Clinton had a 46 percent approval rating in November 1994 and his party still lost 54 seats in the House and eight in the Senate. Trump was at 41 percent in a mid-December poll from NBC News and the Wall Street Journal. Republican strategist Ford O’Connell said Trump had done much to keep his conservative base of support happy but had to expand his popularity. To do that, he needs to ease voters’ concerns about his fitness for office. “What he has to do to win over people like independents and never-Trumpers is make the American people feel comfortable with him as president,” said O’Connell. “His achievements are quite striking, but he’s just not connecting (with the public).” | 1 |
As an example of just how much the left hates Donald J. Trump, after becoming enraged because football great Jim Brown expressed kind words for Trump, a writer for SportingNews. com decided that Brown’s decades of work for civil rights was erased merely because the Hall of Famer was nice to Trump. [SportingNews writer David Steele began his January 18 piece noting that the Cleveland Browns star has been a candidate for the “Mount Rushmore of social, political and activism. ” “If Jim Brown is not on the Mount Rushmore of social, political and activism by athletes in our time (up there with, at least, Muhammad Ali, Tommie Smith and John Carlos) he’s on the short list waiting for a vacancy,” Steele wrote. But that adulation came to an abrupt end. “He was, that is,” Steele continued. “Jim Brown himself is now the vacancy. ” How could a man who spent nearly 50 years at the forefront of the civil rights movement be toppled from that place with just one action? He said nice things about Donald Trump. “Those are the consequences when you insert yourself into a feud between John Lewis and Donald Trump — and take the side of Trump while insulting Lewis,” Steele proclaimed. Steele, who once wrote for the Baltimore Sun, went on to “explain” his “reasons” for erasing 50 years of civil rights advocacy work, “There is simply no way to reconcile Brown’s words, and all the others he has spouted in defense of the man who has spent the week insulting an icon of the movement, and this image, of the meeting Brown himself adjourned on behalf of Ali 50 years ago, when the same forces Lewis was fighting were coming after Ali’s resistance to the draft. ” So, because Jim Brown said a few nice things about Donald Trump and opposed the hateful attacks Congressman John Lewis launched against Trump, including the outright lie that he never missed a past inaugural when he in fact skipped George W. Bush’s for the same “he’s illegitimate” reason, Brown’s decades of good work has become meaningless. Brown has done a lot for his community, and was universally praised by civil rights activists for organizing sports figures to come to the aide of boxing great Muhammad Ali when his title was stripped from him for refusing service in the Vietnam War in 1967. The NFL great also founded the Black Economic Union to help promote business in the nation’s inner cities. But his founding of the Foundation has done the most good, after he spent years trying to mitigate the gang culture. “I was doing economic development for minorities. I was getting black folks to use their dollars to help each other. I looked up and saw black men killing each other over red and blue. Until we did something about that, there was no use for economic development,” Brown recently told the New York Daily News. Since its founding nearly 25 years ago, has improved the lives of gang members, prison inmates, kids and thousands of other people in more than a dozen states across the nation. The heart of is a course Brown created which helps train young blacks to gain control of their emotions in order to lead useful, productive lives. The program he developed helps youth learn to keep a job, raise a family, and go back to school. But to David Steele, all that is meaningless. “That Jim Brown is dead,” Steele says at the tail of his hyperventilating and biased attack on Brown. In the end, though, one might doubt that a man who has 60 years of fame and achievement under his belt will be much bothered by the words of a man with a failed newspaper career and who now writes for a sports website. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com. | 0 |
Posted on October 27, 2016 by Paul Joseph Watson Bureaucrat who said “stupidity” of Americans helped get law passed doubles down
Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber – the bureaucrat who once bragged that the “stupidity” of the American people was crucial for passing the health care law in the first place – told CNN that the “fix” for Obamacare was to impose a “larger mandate penalty”. CNN’s CAROL COSTELLO: “So let’s talk about how exactly you can fix Obamacare. I just need you to be specific because I think people really want answers. So Hillary Clinton says she can fix Obamacare. So what would one fix that would drive premiums down?” JONATHAN GRUBER: “Look, once again, there’s no sense it has to be fixed. The law is working as designed. However, it could work better. And I think, probably the most important things experts would agree on is we need a larger mandate penalty“… Gruber’s arrogance is incredible. Even after the Obama administration acknowledged that premiums are set to skyrocket next year, Gruber thinks that the answer is to financially punish Americans to an even greater degree. Gruber is essentially admitting that Obamacare is designed to make Americans destitute. “ObamaCare was never designed *not* to overwhelm you with the shifting of massive costs. ObamaCare was designed to crush you in costs,” points out the Conservative Treehouse blog . His comments shouldn’t come as much of a surprise given what Gruber thinks of the American people. A series of videos that emerged in 2014 featured Gruber admitting that Obamacare was deceptively crafted in order to fool “stupid” Americans into not realizing that it would mean massive price hikes and that the law’s “lack of transparency (was) a huge political advantage” in selling it. | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will visit Flint, Michigan next week to hear from residents about the drinking water crisis, the White House said on Wednesday. Obama will visit Flint on May 4 to hear “first-hand from Flint residents about the public health crisis,” and get a briefing on federal response efforts, a White House official said. Children in Flint were exposed to dangerous levels of lead in drinking water after a state-appointed city manager ordered a switch to the Flint River for supplies. | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Democrats defeated a Republican effort to undercut the Iran nuclear agreement on Wednesday by blocking an amendment to a spending bill that would have stopped the Obama administration from buying heavy water from Tehran. The amendment to an energy spending bill offered by Republican Senator Tom Cotton received 57 yes votes and 42 no votes. It had needed 60 yes votes to advance in the 100-member Senate. Cotton withdrew his amendment after the vote and the Senate is expected to vote later on a version of the spending bill without it. The measure would have barred the use of U.S. government funds to purchase heavy water, which is non-radioactive and used in nuclear reactors and for making nuclear weapons. Under last year’s nuclear deal between Iran, the United States and five other world powers, Tehran is responsible for reducing its stock of the substance, which it can sell, dilute or dispose of, under certain conditions. President Barack Obama’s administration had warned Congress that it strongly opposed any move to prevent the planned purchase of $8.6 million-worth of heavy water from Iran. Senate Democrats and a handful of Republicans had also banded together in late April to block the Cotton amendment, and hence the spending bill. The dust-up had put a crimp in Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s plans to pass bipartisan appropriations bills to keep the federal government functioning beyond Sept. 30, the end of the government’s fiscal year. | 1 |
ADEN/GENEVA (Reuters) - The Saudi-led military coalition fighting against Yemen s Houthi movement reopened a land border crossing, partly easing a blockade imposed earlier this week, but aid agencies warned of famine and a health catastrophe if other ports stay shut. The coalition said on Monday it would close all air, land and sea ports in Yemen to stem the flow of arms to the Houthis from Iran, after Saudi Arabia intercepted a missile fired toward its capital Riyadh. The al Wadea border crossing, linking Saudi Arabia with territory in eastern Yemen controlled by the Saudi-backed government, was reopened on Thursday, a Yemeni official and witnesses said, letting food and other supplies across. The United Nations has said that a total blockade of Yemen could cause a famine that could kill millions. The government-held southern port of Aden was reopened on Wednesday, but ports in Houthi-held areas are still shut. The Houthis, drawn mainly from Yemen s Zaidi Shi ite minority and allied to long-serving former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, control much of the country including the capital San aa. Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies have been waging war against them on behalf of the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, based in Aden. The Saudis and their allies say the Houthis get weapons from their arch-foe, Iran. Iran denies arming the Houthis and blames the conflict in Yemen on Riyadh. Yemen s stocks of fuel and vaccines will run out in a month unless the Saudi-led coalition allows aid into the blockaded port of Hodeidah and the airport at San aa, UNICEF s representative in the country said on Friday. Meritxell Relano, speaking by phone to reporters in Geneva, said fuel prices had risen 60 percent and there were urgent concerns about a diphtheria outbreak, as well as food shortages because of the port closure. The situation that was already catastrophic is just getting worse, she said. The impact of this is unimaginable in terms of health and diseases. After two years of civil war, Yemen has 7 million people on the brink of famine and has had 900,000 suspected cholera cases in the past six months. United Nations aid chief Mark Lowcock said on Wednesday that if the coalition did not allow humanitarian aid access to Yemen, it would cause the largest famine the world has seen for many decades, with millions of victims. The cholera epidemic had abated in recent weeks with the number of cases slowing amid a major push to fight the disease. But the World Health Organization said the progress could be reversed by the blockade. If the closure is not stopped in the coming days, we may see that the progress is stopped, WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib told a briefing in Geneva. We can see even more cases and more deaths as a result of not being able to get access to people. The closure of Hodeidah port prevented a ship setting sail from Djibouti with 250 tonnes of WHO medical supplies on Wednesday. Trauma kits in particular are running short. If the hostilities continue and the ports remain closed, we will not be able to perform life-saving surgeries or provide basic healthcare, Chaib said. Germany will double its aid to UNICEF for Yemen to 20 million euros this year to help deal with looming famine, bringing its total annual aid to Yemen to 70 million, a spokeswoman for the development ministry said on Friday. The suffering of the people in Yemen is inconceivable and it threatens to become much worse, Development Minister Gerd Mueller told Passauer Neue Presse newspaper. We must act now to prevent the death by starvation of millions of women, children and men. | 1 |
Father Robert A. Sirico, President and Co-Founder of the Acton Institute, and philosopher and author of A Moral Case for Fossil Fuels Alex Epstein embarrass Senator Barbara Boxer with facts when she tries to discredit them.WATCH HERE:Watch brilliant philosopher prove how the Democrats are falsely using income inequality as an argument for climate change. He also brilliantly points out that the poor people who are being hurt the most when the government intentionally targets domestic fossil fuel production.See Epstein s entire testimony here: | 1 |
Microsoft has officially confirmed the cancellation of Platinum Games’ dragon Scalebound after four years of development. [Originally unveiled at E3 2014, Scalebound was a blend of and action, sewn together by progression systems for both the characters and their massive dragon allies. Unfortunately, the original cinematic trailer promised more than the awkward gameplay footage delivered. Scalebound missed E3 2015, was delayed beyond its late 2016 launch, and is now officially cancelled. According to sources in contact with Eurogamer, the project had already been terminated at an unspecified time last year. Persistent problems with the engine and failed deadlines sent Scalebound into what is commonly referred to as “development hell. ” Senior developers even had to take a month away from the project, due to the intense stress surrounding development. Microsoft and Platinum Games quietly separated, but the public announcement was held until after the holiday season. The official statement from Microsoft: After careful deliberation, Microsoft Studios has come to the decision to end production for Scalebound. We’re working hard to deliver an amazing lineup of games to our fans this year, including Halo Wars 2, Crackdown 3, State of Decay 2, Sea of Thieves and other great experiences. For more information on our 2017 plans, please visit: ””>since its reveal at Gamescom 2015. It’s less surprising to see them touting the brilliantly paced sequel to Halo Wars, the cooperative State of Decay 2 that fans have been clamoring for since the first title in the zombie survival franchise was released, and Rare’s madcap swashbuckling multiplayer RPG Sea of Thieves. Follow Nate Church @Get2Church on Twitter for the latest news in gaming and technology, and snarky opinions on both. | 0 |
Time to rewrite the science textbooks: The periodic table has new names for four elements. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, the gatekeeper to the periodic table, announced on Wednesday the proposed names for elements 113, 115, 117 and 118: nihonium, moscovium, tennessine and oganesson. The new names for the four superheavy, radioactive elements will replace the seventh row’s uninspired placeholders of ununtrium, ununpentium, ununseptium and ununoctium. Iupac officially recognized the elements in December and gave naming rights to teams of scientists from the United States, Russia and Japan, who made the discoveries. The proposed names had to follow Iupac rules and are now available for public review. People have until November to object to the proposals, and Iupac has the final say. Nihonium, symbol Nh, was discovered by scientists at the Riken institute in Japan. They are the first from Asia to earn the right to propose an addition to the table. The name comes from “Nihon,” which is one of the two Japanese words for Japan. The other word, “Nippon,” made its way to versions of the periodic table in 1908 as element 43, nipponium, but was never officially accepted. At the time, researchers were unable to replicate the experiments of Masataka Ogawa, a Japanese chemist who isolated the element. Two decades later, it was revealed that Dr. Ogawa had in fact found a new element: element 75, by then already known as rhenium. The team that discovered element 113 told Iupac that they had chosen nihonium in part to honor the work of Dr. Ogawa. A trio of research institutions — the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, in Russia Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in Tennessee and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, in California — were given the right to propose names for elements 115 and 117. Moscovium, symbol Mc, is named for Moscow, which is near the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research. Tennessine, symbol Ts, gets its name from the state of Tennessee, where Oak Ridge National Laboratory is. After californium, it is the second element named for one of the 50 states. Naming rights for element 118 belonged to the same Russian researchers and the Americans from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. They selected Oganesson, symbol Og, for Yuri Oganessian, who helped discover several superheavy elements. If accepted, it will be only the second time that an element is named for a living person. The first was element 106, seaborgium, named for Glenn T. Seaborg. The names may disappoint some people, like the 150, 000 music fans who signed a petition to get element 115 named “lemmium” after Lemmy Kilmister of the band Motorhead, or the 50, 000 Terry Pratchett book lovers who wanted element 117 to be named “octarine,” or New York Times readers who suggested “trumpium” and “godzillium” for the new elements. | 0 |
Yesterday, The New York Times ran a story in which they gave moving accounts of two women who say that Donald Trump sexually assaulted them. Trump maintains that his boasts about being allowed to assault women because he s got star power were just words, and that he s never done such a thing. In a sorry attempt to maintain the illusion that he s a good person, Trump has had his lawyers send the Times an official cease-and-desist, claiming the story amounts to libel.The strange thing is that the bulk of this letter appears to be directed at the women that the Times spoke to than it is to the Times itself: [Y]ou apparently performed an entirely inadequate investigation to test the veracity of these false and malicious allegations, including why these two individuals waited, in one case, 11 years, and, in another case, more than three decades, before deciding to come forward with these false and defamatory statements. And there it is. Assassinating the characters of the victims by saying that, if they d really been assaulted sexually, they d have come forward right away, is a very typical ploy for those trying to defend themselves against such allegations. But there s still nothing in there about what, specifically, is false in the Times story and how they know the Times knowingly published a false story.Trump s victims could all find their names and characters dragged through the mud because of this, and make no mistake, he will do that as loudly as he can. The fear of having that happen, and of not being believed, keeps many sexual assault victims from coming forward.And that could easily be why Trump is doing this. However, his method appears to be two-fold: In addition to intimidating and bullying his victims, he s also intimidating and bullying press outlets. The hope there would be that they won t give a voice to any more of his victims out of fear of getting sued.This isn t the only absurdity in the letter, but it is the most damning, given its possible intent. The letter also makes it political instead of naming specific falsehoods, which is outright ridiculous if this is a serious cease-and-desist: Your article is reckless, defamatory and constitutes libel per se. It is apparent from, among other things, the timing of the article, that it is nothing more than a politically-motivated effort to defeat Mr. Trump s candidacy Clearly, The New York Times is willing to provide a platform to anyone wishing to smear Mr. Trump s name and reputation prior to the election irrespective of whether the alleged statements have any basis in fact. Really? That s a hell of a thing to say in a cease-and-desist. The letter itself is politically motivated it s actually quite difficult to believe that an actual lawyer wrote this baloney. Here s what a strong cease-and-desist letter should contain, and this is a template of a decent cease-and-desist. This idiocy meets none of the conditions it needs to.CNNMoney reports that Trump has also threatened the Palm Beach Post for publishing a separate story from yet another victim. Besides that, the Trump campaign told Times reporter Megan Twohey that he would sue if they published the story. She received her own letter yesterday afternoon and was called a disgusting human being. A lawsuit against the Times would uncover everything and probably sink Trump entirely, because these allegations are the tip of the iceberg. He knows that. But, if nothing else, the discovery phase of this would be interesting.You can read the letter in full here:BREAKING: Trump demands retraction from @nytimes, threatens lawsuit.https://t.co/GBwomM7tgA pic.twitter.com/Htm9uaEsne Christina Wilkie (@christinawilkie) October 13, 2016Featured image via Scott Olson/Getty Images | 1 |
Our New Country: Women And Minorities Hardest Hit Ann Coulter, VDARE, October 26, 2016
Every ethnic group except whites bloc-votes for the Democrats. Coincidentally, the Democrats have brought in another 30 to 40 million nonwhite immigrants in the last few decades.
It doesn’t help that white voters can’t agree on what constitutes an acceptable candidate. In 2012, working-class whites sat out the election, rather than vote for the out-of-touch rich guy they saw in Mitt Romney. This year, the out-of-touch rich guys say they’ll vote for Hillary because Trump is tacky and gross.
The sad irony is that the only people who will be better off in our new country are mostly white plutocrats–the top .01 percent. The rest of us will be their servants.
The people who will be worse off are everybody else–the working class, the middle class (who will soon be working class) and, most of all, women, minorities, children, the elderly, the weakest and most vulnerable members of society.
Look to Mexico for your future–or any Third World country. Or to Univision’s Jorge Ramos. The ruling class in Mexico is composed of European-looking, white descendants of Spanish conquistadors who raped the native population, giving them only their Spanish names in return. (British settlers in America brought women with them.)
Explaining Latino culture’s acceptance of incest and child rape, criminal justice researcher Shana Maier writes in a book about rape that “the male is the head of the household, and women are subordinate to men. . . . Hispanics and Latinos are more likely than other racial/ethnic groups to blame the victim. The victim, not the perpetrator, is blamed for bringing dishonor to the family.”
One American detective said that, today, police are being taught to keep an “open mind” about child rape because “it’s a cultural thing.”
{snip}
, our media already have a totally “open mind” about incest and child rape–and murder!–when it’s committed by immigrants.
{snip}
Immigrant women arrive in America, thrilled to have escaped cultures where rape, incest and spousal murder are acceptable, only to discover that those crimes are perfectly acceptable in this country, too–provided the perpetrator is from the very culture they fled.
{snip}
Perhaps American men could do better, but, as American women may soon discover: They never had it so good.
Manifestly, the purpose of our immigration policies is not to help Americans–or the immigrants who wanted to live in a place like America. They are designed to funnel welfare-dependent voters to the Democrats and cheap labor to the rich. {snip}
Our country will be Zimbabwe, but–if all goes according to the Democrats’ plan–they’ll get to be Mugabe!
That’s Hillary’s dream. If she wins, Joe Sobran’s parody of the typical New York Times headline (about anything) will come true: “Women and Minorities Hit Hardest.” | 1 |
LIMA (Reuters) - Peru s President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski on Wednesday signaled both his vice presidents would resign if Congress forced him from office, calling an opposition bid to remove him a coup attempt that had to be resisted. The rightwing populist party that controls Congress, Popular Force, aims to oust Kuczynski in a vote on Thursday on grounds he is morally unfit to govern, after finding he once had business connections with a company at the center of Latin America s biggest graft scandal. Kuczynski, who denies anything improper or illegal, said Popular Force was misusing its majority to attempt a power grab. The constitution and democracy are under attack. We re facing a coup dressed in supposedly legitimate legal interpretations, he said in a late night speech on national television. This is a conviction that my two vice presidents share, because neither wants to be part of a government born of an unjust and anti-democratic maneuver, Kuczynski said. He was flanked by First Vice President Martin Vizcarra and Second Vice President Mercedes Araoz. If Kuczynski loses Thursday s congressional vote to remove him and his two vice presidents depart as well, new presidential and legislative elections would be called. A 79-year-old former Wall Street banker, Kuczynski has struggled to govern since winning last year s presidential election but only a small share of congressional seats for his center-right party. Popular Force says its efforts to remove him are well within the bounds of the constitution and key to its fight against corruption. He simply doesn t care about the country, Popular Force lawmaker Luz Salgado said after Kuczynski s address. Earlier this week, Salgado called for Vizcarra to govern the country through 2021, when Kucyznski s term ends. Vizcarra and Araoz both pledged their loyalty to the center-right president on Wednesday but declined to comment on whether that meant they would resign if he was removed from office. Araoz told Reuters on Sunday that she and Vizcarra would not quit. In recent days, Kuczynski s supporters have increasingly called for his vice presidents to refuse to replace him. They believe new elections would cost Popular Force its majority amid widespread contempt for elected officials as a graft scandal taints much of the country s political class. But investors worry a new ballot could sweep anti-establishment candidates to power in one of Latin America s most stable economies. Kuczynski s government does not think it will come to that, said a government source. It expects about a dozen opposition lawmakers to oppose the motion or abstain from voting, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Eighty-seven votes are needed to oust Kuczynski. Congress passed the motion to start presidential vacancy proceedings last week with 93 votes. On Wednesday, thousands of Peruvians marched in front of Congress to denounce what they saw as Popular Force s bid to exploit the crisis to sabotage country s democratic institutions, pointing to its recent efforts to also oust the attorney general and a justice in the Constitutional Court. Popular Force emerged from the rightwing populist movement started in the 1990s by former President Alberto Fujimori, who is serving a 25-year-sentence for graft and human rights crimes during his autocratic 1990-2000 government. The United States, where Kuczynski once held citizenship, said Peru was a strong democracy. We are confident that the Peruvian people and institutions will address this situation according to Peru s constitutional norms, the U.S. State Department s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs said. The political crisis stems from a disclosure by Brazilian builder Odebrecht [ODBES.UL], which has landed elites in jail from Colombia to the Dominican Republic since acknowledging bribing officials across the region for much of the century. Responding to a request by Congress, Odebrecht said it paid more than $4 million to consulting companies owned by Kuczynski or a close business associate for about a decade starting in 2004. Some deposits were made to a company Kuczynski owned while he was minister in a government that awarded Odebrecht lucrative contracts. Odebrecht said Saturday that there was no indication the transactions were part of its past corrupt dealings with politicians, which it can only discuss with prosecutors. Kuczynski once strenuously denied ever having any ties with Odebrecht. He has since apologized to Peru for not disclosing his connections with the company, blaming forgetfulness and poor organization of his personal records after decades of work in finance and public administration. But he said there was nothing improper about the payments. Being careless and sloppy is a defect but it is not...a tool for dishonesty and much, much less, for crime, Kuczynski said. Kuczynski had once raised hopes that his decades of finance and public administration experience would usher in a new period of investments to spur faster economic growth in the world s No.2 copper producer. But in a sign of how the crisis has engulfed his government, Peru postponed an auction of a $2 billion copper project, scheduled for Wednesday, until February. | 0 |
Sen. Rand Paul ( ) told reporters Monday afternoon that former Obama National Security Advisor Susan Rice “ought to testify under oath” after Bloomberg News’s Eli Lake revealed that, during the presidential transition, she deliberately sought to “unmask” President Donald Trump’s associates from intelligence surveillance. [Paul called the reports that Rice made dozens of requests to learn more about the identities of anonymous people thought to be close to the Trump transition team, inadvertently caught on tape during investigations into foreign persons of intelligence interest, “enormous news. ” “If it is allowed, we shouldn’t be allowing it. I don’t think we should discount how big a deal it is that Susan rice was looking at these,” Paul told the assembled reporters. The Kentucky Senator then cut to the heart of the growing political fight behind what President Trump has called “wiretapping. ” “She needs to be asked, ‘did President Obama ask her to do this?’ I think she ought to testify under oath on this,” Paul opined. Paul also tried to tie Monday’s revelations about Rice to the slew of leaks on the topic around the time of the handover of the White House. “I think she should be asked under oath, did she reveal it to the Washington Post?” he asked. Paul, long a critic of this type of warrentless intelligence wiretapping and its potential to capture the communications of American citizens, was quick to tie the issues together. “I don’t think you should be allowed to listen to Americans’ conversations without a warrant,” Paul said. “They are targeting a foreigner, and because they are targeting a foreigner they are gathering all of this information on Americans. ” “A million Americans are apparently caught up in these incidental conversations,” Paul continued. “Everybody in the Trump Administration transition, they could basically look at those conversations. ” | 0 |
SOCHI, Russia (Reuters) - Russia s military forces in Syria are likely to be substantially reduced and a drawdown could begin before the end of the year, the head of the Russian general staff, Valery Gerasimov, said on Thursday. | 1 |
(Before It's News)
By Michael Synder Is the 2016 election in the process of being stolen? Just a few weeks ago I issued a major alert warning that this exact sort of thing might happen. Early voting has already begun in many states, and a number of voters in Texas are reporting that the voting machines switched their votes from Donald Trump to Hillary Clinton. The odd thing is that none of the other choices were affected when these individuals attempted to vote for a straight Republican ticket. If Hillary Clinton is declared the winner of the state of Texas on election night, a full investigation of these voting machines should be conducted, because there is no way that Donald Trump should lose that state. I have said that it will be the greatest miracle in U.S. political history if Donald Trump wins this election, but without the state of Texas Donald Trump has exactly zero chance of winning. So those living down in Texas need to keep reporting anything unusual that they see or hear when they go to vote.
Most Americans don’t realize this, but the exact same thing was happening during the last presidential election. The state of Ohio was considered to be the key to Mitt Romney’s chances of winning in 2012, and right up to election day the Romney campaign actually believed that they were going to win the state.
Unfortunately for Romney, something funny was going on with the voting machines. In a previous article , I included a Quote: from an Ohio voter that had her vote switched from Mitt Romney to Barack Obama three times …
“I don’t know if it happened to anybody else or not, but this is the first time in all the years that we voted that this has ever happened to me,” said Marion, Ohio, voter Joan Stevens.
Stevens said that when she voted, it took her three tries before the machine accepted her choice to vote for Romney .
“I went to vote and I got right in the middle of Romney’s name,” Stevens told Fox News, saying that she was certain to put her finger directly on her choice for the White House.
She said that the first time she pushed “Romney,” the machine marked “Obama.”
So she pushed Romney again. Obama came up again. Then it happened a third time.
“Maybe you make a mistake once, but not three times,” she told Fox News.
And we did see some very, very strange numbers come out of certain areas of Ohio four years ago.
For example, there were more than 100 precincts in Cuyahoga County in which Barack Obama got at least 99 percent of the vote in 2012.
If that happened in just one precinct that would be odd enough. But the odds of it happening in more than 100 precincts in just one county by random chance are so low that they aren’t even worth mentioning.
And of course this didn’t just happen in Ohio. Similar things were happening all over the country .
The reason why I bring all of this up is to show that there is a pattern. If a fair vote had been conducted, Romney may have indeed won in 2012, and now it appears that voting machines are being rigged again.
In Wichita County, Texas so many people were reporting that their votes were being switched from Trump to Clinton that it made the local newspaper …
Shortly after early voting booths opened Monday in Wichita County, rumors swirled online about possible errors in the process. Several online posts claimed a friend or family member had attempted to vote straight party Republican ticket, but their presidential nomination was switched to the Democratic nominee, Hilary Clinton. None of the local reports were from people who experienced the situation first hand. A Bowie woman posted that a relative who lives in Arlington saw her votes “switched.” The post was shared more than 100,000 times Monday.
And Paul Joseph Watson has written about some specific individuals that are making allegations that their votes for president were switched by the machines. One of the examples that he cited was a Facebook post by Lisa Houlette of Amarillo, Texas …
Gary and I went to early vote today…I voted a straight Republican ticket and as I scrolled to submit my ballot I noticed that the Republican Straight ticket was highlighted, however, the clinton/kaine box was also highlighted! I tried to go back and change and could not get it to work. I asked for help from one of the workers and she couldn’t get it to go back either. It took a second election person to get the machine to where I could correct the vote to a straight ticket. Be careful and double check your selections before you cast your vote! Don’t hesitate to ask for help. I had to have help to get mine changed.
I don’t know about you, but major alarm bells went off in my head when I read that.
A similar incident was reported on Facebook by Shandy Clark of Arlington, Texas …
Hey everyone, just a heads up! I had a family member that voted this morning and she voted straight Republican. She checked before she submitted and the vote had changed to Clinton! She reported it and made sure her vote was changed back. They commented that It had been happening. She is trying to get the word out and asked that we post and share. Just want everyone’s vote to be accurate and count. Check your vote before you submit!
And of course they weren’t the only ones reporting vote switching. It turns out that lots of other Texans have also experienced this phenomenon …
So is there a serious problem with the voting machines?
According to Breitbart , one county in Texas has already removed all electronic voting machines and has made an emergency switch to paper ballots…
Chambers County election officials have executed an emergency protocol to remove all electronic voting machines available during early voting until a software update can be completed to correct problems experienced by straight-ticket voters .
Chambers County Clerk Heather Hawthorne told Breitbart Texas Tuesday morning that all electronic voting was temporarily halted until her office completes a “software update” on ES&S machines that otherwise “omit one race” when a straight ticket option is selected for either major party. The Texas 14 th Court of Appeals race was reported to be the contest in which voters commonly experienced the glitch.
Let’s keep a very close eye on this. If the state of Texas ends up in Trump’s column on election night, perhaps no harm has been done.
But if Trump loses Texas there is no possible way that he will be able to make up those 38 electoral votes somewhere else.
Despite what the mainstream media is saying, the truth is that election fraud is very real. Just the other day, WND published an article that contained a list of documented cases of election fraud in 23 different states . And Devvy Kidd just authored a piece that pointed out that there are 24 million voter registrations in this country that are “ no longer valid or are significantly inaccurate “…
In 2012 the highly respected Pew Research Center exposed the sickening state of voter rolls in this country:
Nearly 2 million deceased registered to vote
Close to 3 million registered in multiples states
Approximately 24 million—one of every eight—voter registrations in the United States are no longer valid or are significantly inaccurate
More than 1.8 million deceased individuals are listed as voters
Approximately 2.75 million people have registrations in more than one state
But despite everything you just read, the mainstream media is trying very hard to prop up faith in the integrity of the process. In fact, just today CNN came out with an article entitled “ Poll: Most see a Hillary Clinton victory and a fair count ahead “…
Almost 7 in 10 voters nationwide say they think Hillary Clinton will win the presidency next month, but most say that if that happens, Donald Trump will not accept the results and concede, according to a new CNN/ORC poll.
Americans overall are more confident that the nation’s votes for president will be cast and counted accurately this year than they were in 2008. Whatever the outcome, however, nearly 8 in 10 say that once all the states have certified their vote counts, the losing candidate has an obligation to accept the results and concede to the winner.
Unfortunately, CNN does not have much credibility left at this point, and it is getting harder and harder to believe the polls that are being put out by the mainstream media.
And the mainstream media would also have us believe that if evidence of election fraud does emerge that it will be because the Russians have made it up …
U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials are warning that hackers with ties to Russia’s intelligence services could try to undermine the credibility of the presidential election by posting documents online purporting to show evidence of voter fraud.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said however, that the U.S. election system is so large, diffuse and antiquated that hackers would not be able to change the outcome of the Nov. 8 election.
But hackers could post documents, some of which might be falsified, that are designed to create public perceptions of widespread voter fraud, the officials said.
Now that is a real “conspiracy theory”, and it would be incredibly funny if all of this wasn’t so serious.
During this election season, if you see or hear anything unusual about voting in your area, please report it.
The American people should be allowed to make a free and fair choice, and anyone that attempts to alter an election is committing a crime against all of us.
And let’s watch the state of Texas very carefully. If it goes blue, you will know that something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/it-is-happening-again-voting-machines-are-switching-votes-from-donald-trump-to-hillary-clinton | 1 |
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway is offended because CNN s Anderson Cooper rolled his eyes during an interview with her. Who are the snowflakes again? During an interview on Wednesday Conway thought Cooper was being a big ol meanie over Trump s bizarre timing in firing FBI Director James Comey.Cooper had had it with her lies. He eventually just rolled his eyes and that moment circulated around the Internet and gifs were made. Conway has, after all, been called out on her lies before.On Thursday, Conway appeared on Fox & Friends and accused Cooper of sexism for rolling his eyes during the interview. I face sexism a lot of times when I show up for interviews like that, Conway said.Watch:WATCH: @KellyannePolls reacts to Anderson Cooper's eyeroll pic.twitter.com/NUa0EftToi FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) May 11, 2017Cooper played clips of Donald Trump praising Comey, then Conway defended her boss. Her desperate defense prompted an eye roll from the CNN host.Conway said, You are conflating two things that don t belong together. Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I was on your show often last fall, [wink], saying we were going to win Michigan and how we were going to do it, and that s when Cooper rolled his eyes.Conway suggested that she was the victim of an eye roll because she works for a Republican. Could you imagine having a male anchor on the network roll eyes at Hillary Clinton, at somebody a female representative spokeswoman for President Obama or President Bill Clinton? I think not, she said. Hillary Clinton is in search of sexism as a lame excuse for why her disastrous candidacy and campaign lost six months ago, the propagandist added. I face sexism a lot of times when I show up for interviews like that. Right, so Hillary never faced sexism during the campaign, according to Ms. Liar Pants. Trump that Bitch was a favorite slogan with Trump supporters. Or how about that time Trump tweeted (then deleted) that If Hillary Clinton can t satisfy her husband what makes her think she can satisfy America? Blaming a woman for her husband s infidelity is sexist, by the way.Image of the Snowflake via screen capture. | 1 |
NEW YORK (Reuters) - President-elect Donald Trump is considering Goldman Sachs Group Inc President and Chief Operating Officer Gary Cohn to head the White House budget office or to fill other positions, a Trump transition official said on Wednesday. Cohn, 56, a former Goldman commodities trader who joined the firm in 1990, has been widely considered to be the heir apparent to Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein. Dow Jones reported earlier on Wednesday that Cohn, who met with Trump on Tuesday, has had discussions about leaving the firm. If Cohn is picked to become Trump’s budget director and is subsequently confirmed by the U.S. Senate early next year, he would play a lead role in formulating spending priorities for domestic and international programs funded by Washington. The budgets produced annually by the White House’s Office of Management and Budget are a reflection of every administration’s legislative priorities and a blueprint for detailed spending and tax bills the president wants Congress to consider. Cohn has donated both to Democrats and Republicans over the years. He has given more recently to Republicans, including $33,400 to the National Republican Congressional Committee in 2015, according to campaign contribution records. They also showed that in 2007 and 2008, Cohn donated to Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaigns. Cohn is a former Goldman commodities trader from Ohio who joined the firm in 1990. He served in a variety of leadership roles in bond trading, becoming co-head of Goldman’s broader securities and eventually, co-president in 2006. He makes frequent appearances at industry conferences and on television, where he speaks about the state of the financial markets. Cohn struggled with dyslexia as a child and bounced from school to school, according to a Malcolm Gladwell profile from his book “David and Goliath.” Cohn is typically known throughout Goldman for his direct and abrasive manner in dealing with colleagues, although he has become more polished in recent years, current and former executives said. Leaving Goldman to go to Washington would not be the first time that Cohn had taken a big risk. He was given his first job on Wall Street after visiting the trading pit and sharing a cab with one of the traders to LaGuardia airport. Although Cohn knew nothing about trading options, he convinced the trader to give him an interview opportunity and he eventually landed a job on the floor of the commodities exchange. “Everything I’ve done in my career ... is to take risks,” Cohn said in a 2009 speech at American University’s Kogod School of Business to new graduates. Alongside Blankfein, Cohn is one of the few senior executives left on Wall Street who navigated through the financial crisis. Cohn’s co-president, Jon Winkelried, left the firm in 2009. But with Blankfein showing no sign that he will step down soon, some inside the firm have wondered if Cohn has other aspirations outside the Wall Street bank. Pacific Investment Management Co in 2013 had considered Cohn to replace Mohamed El-Erian. But discussions never progressed beyond an initial stage, according to reports at the time. While Cohn does not have political experience, he is no stranger to Capitol Hill. Cohn was a regular visitor to Washington following the financial crisis, speaking to lawmakers and regulators about the markets, financial regulation and the commodities sector. He has known Sen. Sherrod Brown, the Democratic senator from Ohio, for years and has contributed to his campaign. Cohn met with lawmakers, including Brown, in 2014 as Goldman tried to defend its presence in the commodities market. Cohn is also friendly with Rob Portman, the Ohio Republican senator who renounced his support for Trump in October. The two co-hosted an event in 2013 in Cleveland for small business owners who graduated from Goldman’s 10,000 Small Business program. Cohn is just one of a cadre of other former Goldman Sachs executives who are slated to join the Trump administration, including nominee for Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House adviser Steve Bannon. With the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives both under Republican control, Trump’s budget proposals are likely to receive more serious consideration than budgets submitted over the past few years by President Obama, who was regularly at odds with Republican lawmakers. | 1 |
The day has come. Within a few hours, we should know who is the next President of the United States. You can also follow results on the RVF election results thread or the high energy Donald Trump thread .
Don’t Miss: If Donald Trump Doesn’t Win, We’re Screwed
| 1 |
November 10th, 2016 - Fort Russ News -
PolitRussia - Translated by Inessa Sinchougova
The 'creature from Jekyll island' (the aptly named organisation "Federal Reserve Bank" is neither federal, nor a full reserve as such!) is on its last legs as it struggles to retain the US dollar hegemony. Why worry about the $19 trillion debt level, the highest in the world, when you've got the dollar printing machine?
Follow us on Facebook!
Follow us on Twitter!
Donate!
| 1 |
Yes, he did promise to support Donald Trump: | 0 |
Obama must have added this to the deal so he can move to close GITMO. He s just itching to release more terrorists and close GITMO because it s clear his legacy is more important than the safety and security of Americans. As President Obama announced that Cuba was restoring full diplomatic relations, reopening embassies in Washington and Havana after more than five decades, Cuba was once again demanding the U.S. return Guantanamo to the country. To achieve normalization [of diplomatic relations] it will be essential also that the territory illegally occupied by the Guantanamo Naval Base is returned, read a declaration posted on Granma, the official organ of the Communist Party in the island.The Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, home to Guantanamo Bay detention camp since 2012, is located on 45 square miles of a bay the U.S. leased for use as a coaling and naval station in 1903.In the 700-word declaration, the Cuban government also demands the U.S. end the transmission of anti-Castro radio and television broadcasts on the island.The demands echo, almost word by word, those made by President Raul Castro back in January, during the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States summit on Costa Rica. Radio and television transmissions to Cuba ( ) are in violation of international law and are harmful to our sovereignty policies, the declaration reads, while demanding also that programs aimed at promoting internal subversion and destabilization be stopped. Obama announced Wednesday that the U.S. and Cuba will reopen their embassies in Havana and Washington, heralding a new chapter in relations after a half-century of hostility. We don t have to be imprisoned by the past, Obama said from White House Rose Garden. Americans and Cubans alike are ready to move forward. Read more: FOX NEWS LATINO | 0 |
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Illinois’ governor on Wednesday proposed boosting the shrinking ranks of the Illinois State Police in an effort to quell a steady increase in gun violence spilling over from Chicago’s neighborhoods onto the city’s expressways. Bruce Rauner’s proposed budget would add a projected 170 troopers through two cadet classes, one this year and another during the 2019 fiscal year. Seventy of these troopers would be sent to the Chicago area. “Those officers will allow us to send more patrols to the Chicago area, to the expressways to counter the violence that has spilled over onto the highways there,” the Republican governor told lawmakers in his Springfield budget address. The number of Illinois State Police troopers has declined significantly since 2008 when there were 2,105 sworn officers, according to state police data. That number dropped by more than 400 troopers to 1,671 as of last year. Rauner took office in 2015. Feuding between Rauner and Democrats who control the legislature has kept Illinois without a full operating budget since July 2015, which has meant no cadet hires for the state police in 2015 and 2016. A six-month fiscal 2017 budget expired on Dec. 31. At the same time, the number of shootings on Chicago-area expressways has consistently increased, with law enforcement placing the blame on increased gang activity. There were just nine Chicago-area expressway shootings in 2011 and 2012. Shooting incidents jumped to 19 in 2014 from 16 in 2013. The number nearly doubled to 37 in 2015 and rose again to 47 in 2016. Three of last year’s shootings were fatal. There have been two confirmed shootings on the expressways so far this year and six others that are unconfirmed, Illinois State Police spokesman Jason Bradley said by email. The violence in 2016 came as part of a broader surge in violence across Chicago, the nation’s third most populous city. With the additions to police numbers, there will be an increase in overall state police headcount of about 140 to an estimated 2,651 for the 2018 fiscal year from an estimated 2,511 for fiscal 2017. The cost of the two classes for the 2018 fiscal year will be $10.5 million, the proposed budget said. The annualized cost of the new officers, including salaries and benefits, will be $20 million. | 1 |
Tapper, the host of the network's "State of the Union" Sunday show and "The Lead" on weekdays, was picked to lead the event at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library on Sept. 16.
The prime-time debate will actually be split into two parts: One with the candidates that national polls rank as the top 10 GOP contenders, and one with the candidates who didn't make that cut.
The broad GOP field has presented a challenge for both Fox News and CNN as debate hosts.
Fox News announced a plan for an August 6 debate that would only include the 10 candidates that were at the top of the heap, as determined by an average of national polls. Fox's proposed criteria created the most consternation, partly because it is hosting the first debate, partly because it is a favorite of conservatives, and partly because its rules are more restrictive than CNN's. Some Republican Party leaders in Iowa and New Hampshire have said they feel the use of national polls stomps on their roles as the first in the nation caucus and primary states, respectively. Tapper announced that he'll moderate the debate on Sunday, at the end of his first show as CNN's new "State of the Union" host. | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders returned to Washington for meetings on Thursday with President Barack Obama and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid as Democrats pressured him to end his presidential campaign and support Hillary Clinton after a hard-fought primary race. Clinton, a former secretary of state, U.S. senator and first lady, secured enough delegates to secure the Democratic nomination this week and become the first woman to lead a major U.S. party as its presidential nominee. Despite Clinton’s commanding victories in California and New Jersey in presidential contests on Tuesday, Sanders vowed to carry his populist campaign to the Democratic National Convention in July, when the party’s nominee is formally chosen. Obama, who is expected to endorse Clinton soon, was scheduled to meet with Sanders at the White House on Thursday at 11:15 a.m. (1515 GMT). Sanders will meet with Reid, his Senate colleague, in the afternoon. The Sanders campaign, which waged an unexpectedly strong challenge to a better-known and better-funded Democrat, has decried what it called Clinton’s anointment by the party establishment and the media. In an interview taped on Wednesday for broadcast on the NBC’s “Tonight” show on Thursday, Obama said he hoped that divisions between Democrats would start to heal in coming weeks now that Clinton has clinched the party’s nomination for the Nov. 8 presidential election. At a fund-raiser in New York City on Wednesday, Obama said he was not too worried about bruised feelings after the primary and said “it was a healthy thing for the Democratic Party to have a contested primary.” Obama praised Sanders, the democratic socialist senator from Vermont, for bringing new energy and ideas to the party. “He pushed the party and challenged them,” he said. “I thought it made Hillary a better candidate.” Democrats are striking a delicate balance between the need to unite behind Clinton in the looming battle against presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump and not alienating Sanders and his supporters. U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, herself a progressive known as a fiery critic of Wall Street, is preparing to endorse Clinton in the coming weeks after staying neutral in the Democratic primary, people familiar with her thinking told Reuters. | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Congressional Budget Office said on Wednesday that repealing the Obamacare individual mandate would increase the number of uninsured by 13 million by 2027 and reduce the federal budget deficit less than initially forecast. The CBO, the nonpartisan budget-scoring agency, said that eliminating the Obamacare mandate that all Americans purchase health insurance or else pay a fine would lower the deficit by $338 billion over the next decade, not $416 billion as it estimated in December. The agency found that health insurance premiums would rise by about 10 percent in most years over the next decade in the individual market created by the Affordable Care Act, former Democratic President Barack Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement. It noted that markets in most areas of the country would remain stable. President Donald Trump and some Republicans favor including a repeal of the mandate in tax overhaul legislation. But lawmakers, Republican aides and lobbyists have said it would be difficult to include a repeal in a tax effort complicated by intraparty differences and intense business lobbying. The U.S. House of Representatives unveiled its tax plan last week, and the Senate’s plan is expected to be released on Thursday. The individual mandate is a central tenet of Obamacare that health policy experts and proponents say is essential to making the law work. It compels young and healthy people to join health insurance markets and help lower premiums by offsetting the costs of sicker patients. Americans must note on their tax returns whether they have health coverage. Yet it has proved to be among the most controversial portions of the law as Republicans, who say Obamacare is too expensive and an example of government overreach, argue that the federal government should not be able to require people to buy health insurance if they do not want it. The CBO said in its December report that the individual mandate increases the federal deficit by encouraging people to buy subsidized coverage, either through Medicaid, the government health insurance program for the poor and disabled, employer-provided plans, or through the Obamacare individual health insurance market. Eliminating the mandate would lower the deficit by reducing federal spending on subsidized health insurance coverage, it said. The CBO said abolishing the requirement would cause premiums to rise because healthier people would be less likely to purchase insurance. It found that the resulting increases would cause more people to forego insurance. | 0 |
Google Pinterest Digg Linkedin Reddit Stumbleupon Print Delicious Pocket Tumblr
It’s been a weird 24 hours if you happen to live inside the head of Sean Hannity. The Fox News pundit and Trump propagandist has been live tweeting some sort of mental breakdown and it’s entirely unclear what the endgame is.
It started like this: For reasons unknown, on his radio show Hannity told listeners that he would be asking Donald Trump for help in shipping the Obama family – all of whom are Americans – to Kenya after the election.
If you’re saying to yourself “Wow, that sounds pretty racist” the answer is yes, yes it is . There is no universe in which a person telling America’s first black president to go back to Africa cannot be construed as a racist statement. That is, unless you happen to reside in the fantasy world that Sean Hannity currently lives in.
After getting rightfully hammered for the comments, Hannity either got very drunk or had a psychotic break and tweeted out a profoundlymisspelled defense of what he said. The tweets wouldn’t pass a breathalyzer.
Tweet #1 (now deleted):
Liberal media. It’s was Josh Ernest who refuse to amswee teh ? Will Obama stay in the US if DT wins. I mentioned I’d pay a charter to …
“amswee teh ?” Really?
Tweet #2 (now deleted):
Liberal media 2 Any country they choose. 1- Canada where the satire piece was written Kenya where he visited
The second tweet also linked to the website of infamous conservative provocateur Chuck Johnson, a racist white nationalist who once proposed the theory that Obama was a gay prostitute. Johnson is so morally repugnant that he was officially permanently banned from ever holding an account on Twitter.
After waking up, Hannity got back on Twitter to do damage control. According to him, these incoherent cries for help weren’t what they looked like, he just didn’t have his glasses on… Half asleep and didn't put my glasses on. Lol. I wish I had a better excuse. https://t.co/GUvw7ef2AV
— Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) October 27, 2016
He also doubled down on his defense of telling Obama to go to Africa. I said I'll send him anywhere he wants to go. I mentioned Canada first, Kenya where part of his family is today, Jakarta where he once lived https://t.co/wvNxCMTXYu
— Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) October 27, 2016
None of which “answee teh ?” of why the Obama family should be exiled to another country in the first place. Glasses or not, that’s a level of fascist thinking that has been relatively unthinkable in American democracy. Only since the rise of Trump, and his avowed policy of going after his political and personal enemies after he’s elected, would the idea of banning a former president from the country even be imagined. Now it’s being normalized by a Fox News pundit with an audience of millions.
Sean Hannity has been a hack for many years, but Donald Trump finally completely severed his grip on reality. We’re witnessing what happens when a man with major delusions gets to indulge them in front of an audience of millions each night on a major network – and it isn’t pretty.
Featured image via Fox News Share this Article! | 1 |
LANY, Czech Republic (Reuters) - Czech billionaire Andrej Babis, the runaway winner of last weekend s parliamentary election, said on Monday he wanted to form a governing coalition with a stable partner, and a minority government was an unrealistic plan. Babis s search for government partners is running into trouble. He faces fraud charges - which he denies - that have led other parties to rule out working with him, even though his ANO party got 29.6 percent of the vote, nearly triple its closest competitor. The anti-establishment party scored at polls with pledges to clean up corruption and bring a businessman s touch to governance, winning over voters who shunned mainstream parties. Babis s popularity has grown during his time in the current center-left government, which has been marked by fast economic growth, a balanced budget, falling unemployment and rising wages. Babis said after talks with President Milos Zeman at a presidential chateau on Monday that the president would ask him next week to begin leading talks on forming a new cabinet. Traditionally, the president asks the leader of the winning party to lead talks before formally appointing a prime minister. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker sent a congratulatory letter to Babis, saying that the new government should keep in mind the European Union s common values. I wish you all the best for the challenge ahead in terms of forming a stable government that will be able to position the Czech Republic as an important participant in the efforts to make the European Union more united, stronger and more democratic on the basis of our common values, he said. Babis told reporters he preferred having as few parties as possible in the next government. A single-color government is not realistic ... We want to negotiate a coalition government, Babis told reporters. We of course prefer a stable partner in government for the whole term. ANO will control 78 seats in the 200-member lower house. Babis said a link with the election runner-up, the center-right Civic Democrat party, made sense based on seats in the lower house - together, the two would have a majority. The party, though, has so far refused to cooperate. In other options, more partners would be needed. Babis s current partners, the leftist Social Democrats of Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka and the centrist Christian Democrats, have rejected a government with ANO unless it pledges Babis will not be part of it. Babis said he did not want a government that would include Communists and the anti-EU, anti-immigration SPD party, which made surprisingly a strong showing in the election. His position against a minority government also seemed to rule out seeking their support in a less formal arrangement. Police are looking at whether Babis, the country s second richest person, hid ownership of a convention center to receive a 2 million-euro EU subsidy in 2008. He has said the investigation was part of efforts to kick him out of politics. Opponents see Babis, worth an estimated $4 billion, as a danger to democracy, fearing his business and media power could pose conflicts of interest. | 0 |
(Reuters) - Myanmar stands accused by rights groups of ethnic cleansing and human rights violations after violence broke out in the northwestern state of Rakhine, triggering an exodus of about 400,000 Rohingya Muslims to southern Bangladesh. At least 400 people have been killed, and thousands of homes and villages have been torched, since the military launched a counteroffensive against Rohingya insurgents in late August. Myanmar does not recognize the roughly 1.1 million Rohingyas as citizens, leaving them effectively stateless. The following are questions and answers on the violence: The military says it is protecting Myanmar against attacks by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), which it has labeled a terrorist group and accuses of killings and destruction in Rakhine state. Human rights monitors and fleeing Rohingya say the army and ethnic Rakhine Buddhist vigilantes have mounted a campaign of arson aimed at driving out the Rohingya. Rights groups say an independent investigation is required to determine possible abuses or violations by various parties. Yes, according to United Nations officials and rights groups. Top U.N. officials have said the violence in Myanmar is a case of textbook ethnic cleansing . The U.N. has in the past defined ethnic cleansing as rendering an area ethnically homogeneous by using force or intimidation to remove persons of given groups from the area. Ethnic cleansing is not recognized as a separate crime under international law. But allegations of ethnic cleansing as part of wider, systematic human rights violations have been heard in international courts against individuals - including former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, who was convicted of genocide. Phil Robertson, deputy director for Asia at Human Rights Watch (HRW), said initial investigations in Myanmar were indicative of an ethnic cleansing campaign . When an army is burning people out of their villages all over northern Rakhine state and using violence against civilians, it results in the kind of incredible refugee flows we re seeing, he added. Myanmar has denied allegations of ethnic cleansing. ARE WE SEEING GENOCIDE, WAR CRIMES, CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY? Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has said the killing of hundreds of Rohingya amounted to genocide, but rights groups have so far stayed away from these labels, because all three categories are clearly defined and covered in international law. For the ongoing violence to be considered war crimes, the parties involved would have to be at war. Currently, experts say, Myanmar is not technically at war because it only has one party - the military - that is organized enough to carry out intensive fighting operations. We have not yet been able to determine whether a state of war is present in Rakhine state, said HRW s Robertson. Crimes against humanity and genocide could be taking place even in the absence of war, but, under U.N. definitions, there would need to be proof of other conditions such as broader, systematic attacks against the Rohingyas. Human rights groups have accused Myanmar of laying anti-personnel mines along the border with Bangladesh to prevent Rohingya refugees from returning to Rakhine state. Because the crisis is not currently defined as a war, this cannot be considered a war crime, according to experts. However it would violate other international human rights laws, even though Myanmar is not party to the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty. For nations that are not parties to the treaty, the use of anti-personnel mines violates customary international law, because the weapons are inherently indiscriminate and cause disproportionate long-term harm to civilians, said Richard Weir, a legal expert at HRW. A Myanmar military source told Reuters that landmines were laid along the border in the 1990s to prevent trespassing and the military had since tried to remove them, but that none had been planted recently. In international law, an individual can be held criminally responsible for when a state or military commits war crimes or crimes against humanity. Rights groups have called for an independent investigation of abuses by all parties, including ARSA. Many believe the government and the military should be held responsible. Myanmar is systematically violating the rights of the Rohingya ... and both the government and the military now need to suffer serious consequences for this, said HRW s Robertson. This depends on the findings of an independent investigation, if the Myanmar government allows one to take place, experts say. Rights groups have called for the U.N. Security Council to also reprimand Myanmar in other ways, for instance, by imposing sanctions such as an arms embargo. They have also urged countries, including the United States and Australia, to suspend bilateral military ties. The 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner has faced widespread international criticism for not doing enough to protect the Rohingya community. Suu Kyi has no direct control over the military, which remains powerful under Myanmar s army-written constitution. But she is Myanmar s foreign minister and de facto civilian leader and has defended the military operation. It s premature to speculate, said Robertson, adding that individual responsibility should be based on an impartial investigation. The International Criminal Court (ICC), based in The Hague, Netherlands, has the jurisdiction to prosecute crimes of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Myanmar is among the countries, which also include the United States and China, that are not signatory to the treaty that created the ICC, so it is not obligated to cooperate. But if the U.N. Security Council were to refer a case to the court then Myanmar, being a member of the U.N., would be subject to its jurisdiction. Ad hoc tribunals and commissions have been set up in the past to hear cases of mass human rights violations. For instance, the United Nations established the International Criminal Tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda to deal with crimes that took place there. Rights groups say they are protected by various U.N. human rights treaties, primarily the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which Myanmar voted for in 1948. The document includes provisions for the right to life and right to a nationality - particularly relevant to the Rohingyas, who are effectively stateless. (Story amends headline.) | 0 |
Obama promised to keep his SOTU speech short but he couldn t even keep that promise. For anyone who watched it, it went on and on It was full of fairy tales about pretty much everything. So what s new, right? Obama s been able to lie his way through his entire presidency so why not in his last SOTU speech. We think this list of lies by Joel Pollack of Breitbart News is pretty dead on:1. We ve done all this while cutting our deficits by almost three-quarters. This is pure fiction. Obama has doubled the national debt, and it s not because he cut the deficit. Rather, he spent staggering amounts of money in his first months in office which he assigns, dishonestly, to the previous fiscal year, under George W. Bush. He cut (i.e. spent more gradually) from that spending, but only under protest, after Republicans took the House in 2010.2. Anyone claiming that America s economy is in decline is peddling fiction. With that line, Obama took a shot at his would-be Democratic successors, as well as his Republican critics. But the truth is that despite the slow recovery the slowest since World War II labor force participation is the lowest it has been in decades. Wages are stagnant, household incomes still have not recovered from the recession, and young people see ableak future.3. That s what the Affordable Care Act is all about. It s about filling the gaps in employer-based care so that when we lose a job, or go back to school, or start that new business, we ll still have coverage. That is a cruel joke, given that Obamacare canceled insurance coverage for millions of Americans who did not change jobs. It also raised deductibles and premiums so high that many insurance companies are leaving the Obama exchanges totally.4. Food Stamp recipients didn t cause the financial crisis; recklessness on Wall Street did. Actually, food stamp recipients, metaphorically speaking, were indirectly responsible as well as Wall Street sharks. Obama leaves out the government s role, under the Community Reinvestment Act, in pushing mortgages on people who could not afford them, and in backing the derivatives based on those mortgages that ultimately burst the whole bubble.5. We ve protected an open internet . Obama s policy of Net Neutrality has turned Internet service providers into public utilities under an ancient regulatory regime. The result has been a sharp decline in broadband investment and a much less free and open system. In addition, the Obama administration is rushing to shift control of ICANN to the international community, which will ensure that the Internet is less free, and subject to overseas censorship.6. Seven years ago, we made the single biggest investment in clean energy in our history. Here are the results. It is laughable that Obama would claim his failed clean energy spending think Solyndra led to the fracking-fed energy boom we have enjoyed for the past several years, especially when the administration did all it could to stop oil and gas development. He also nixed the Keystone pipeline and started a plan to kill coal plants.7. No nation dares to attack us or our allies because they know that s the path to ruin. Of all the lies in Obama s speech, this was undoubtedly the worst, coming hours after Iran seized two U.S. Navy boats and ten sailors. Obama did not even mention those Americans in captivity at any point in his speech, declining the chance to reassure the nation that they would come home safely. It is an omission that will define this address in history.8. As someone who begins every day with an intelligence briefing, I know this is a dangerous time. Obama does not attend most of his daily intelligence briefings, preferring instead to read intelligence reports so he claims on his iPad, a stark contrast to the attentive approach of his predecessor. Late last year, even as Obama claimed that there was little risk from attack, radical Islamic terrorists carried out brutal attacks in Paris and in San Bernardino.9. We are training, arming, and supporting forces who are steadily reclaiming territory in Iraq and Syria [from Islamic State]. The Obama administration s attempt to train and arm Syrian rebels has been a disaster. Belatedly, the administration has helped Kurdish peshmerga forces, and the Iraqi military has made gains lately, but Obama has not made a serious effort to defeat the Islamic State, and is even giving up on regime change in Syria.10. Fifty years of isolating Cuba had failed to promote democracy, setting us back in Latin America. And a year of appeasement has not promoted democracy, either. The Castros remain firmly in power, and we are not helping the opposition. Worse, the Cuban regime continues to arrest thousands of political dissidents, to cozy up to enemies like Iran and North Korea, and to carry out provocative acts such as stealing a U.S. Hellfire missile.Read more: Breitbart News | 1 |
REPORT: Hillary’s Friends Told To Lie About Her Email Scandal
How powerful is the NSA?
This secretive agency employs thousands of people and has literally weaponized our national information technology infrastructure. Most of the most powerful espionage tools are created by the National Security Agency’s elite group of hackers.
If there is anyone on the planet who best understands the NSA’s clandestine capabilities, it’s Kim Dotcom. The international encryption expert and open-source advocate wanted people to know that there was a clear path to recovering Clinton’s emails that she has claimed were deleted because of their “personal” nature.
You can see the list here: I know where Hillary Clintons deleted emails are and how to get them legally @TGowdySC @seanhannity @realDonaldTrump . 100% true. Retweet. pic.twitter.com/eir8r0FJ8M
— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) October 26, 2016
Clinton began using the now-famous private server at her home in 2009. Using XKeyscore, the surveillance program revealed by Edward Snowden, NSA analysts could drill deeper into data as far back as 2012, when Clinton served as secretary of state, the Business Times reported.
Congress spent millions of dollars investigating Hillary Clinton’s missing emails and illegal use of a private server, and the liberal media , rather than reporting on the results of those investigations, has instead tried to use the conflict between Democrats and Republicans as a sideshow to distract from the issues that really matter to Americans. | 1 |
What the West really needs to take on the Islamic State is ... a jobs program.
That's what a top State Department spokeswoman suggested when asked in a TV interview Monday night about what the U.S.-led coalition is doing to stop the slaughter of civilians by Islamic State militants across the region.
"We're killing a lot of them, and we're going to keep killing more of them. ... But we cannot win this war by killing them," department spokeswoman Marie Harf said on MSNBC's "Hardball." "We need ... to go after the root causes that leads people to join these groups, whether it's lack of opportunity for jobs, whether --"
At that point, Harf was interrupted by host Chris Matthews, who pointed out, "There's always going to be poor people. There's always going to be poor Muslims."
Harf continued to argue that the U.S. should work with other countries to "help improve their governance" and "help them build their economies so they can have job opportunities for these people."
She acknowledged there's "no easy solution" and said the U.S. would still take out ISIS leaders. But Harf said: "If we can help countries work at the root causes of this -- what makes these 17-year-old kids pick up an AK-47 instead of trying to start a business?"
Asked about Harf's remarks on Tuesday, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Harf was only making the point that fighting ISIS entails more than just a military solution.
The comments come as the Obama administration takes heat from lawmakers for its approach to the Islamic State, whose self-proclaimed fighters in Libya recently executed 21 Coptic Christians from Egypt.
The White House on Tuesday kicked off a three-day summit on "countering violent extremism." It began with Vice President Biden moderating a discussion on countering extremism with representatives from cities.
This, though, follows a pattern of conferences and summits called by the administration to address urgent challenges. The administration is facing criticism for this approach -- and for describing the summit in general terms -- at a time when Islamic State militants are spreading, recruiting and executing prisoners from multiple countries in increasingly brutal ways.
"The White House had to seem like it was doing something," said Jonah Goldberg, a National Review editor and conservative columnist, while claiming the summit won't achieve much.
Senior administration officials, though, defended the conference, and their description of it, on a call with reporters.
Asked whether Islamic extremists are in fact the focus of the summit, one official said extremism has spanned "many decades" and taken on "many forms," but they recognize that those launching recent attacks "are calling themselves Muslims."
"You can call them what you want. We're calling them terrorists," the official said.
The New York Times reported Tuesday that as airstrikes continue in Iraq and Syria, the administration is boosting efforts to counter ISIS on social media. The plan centers around a small State Department agency that pushes against ISIS and other groups' online propaganda.
"We're getting beaten on volume, so the only way to compete is by aggregating, curating and amplifying existing content," Richard Stengel, under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, told the Times.
Officials reportedly plan to describe some of their social media strategy at the three-day counter-extremism summit. | 0 |
LONDON (Reuters) - Heathrow Airport announced a public consultation on the proposed development of a third runway at Europe s biggest airport, saying it aimed to mitigate the environmental impact of expansion. Prime Minister Theresa May backed a $22 billion expansion of the London hub in October 2016, after decades of government indecision. But the plan has been controversial, with critics highlighting the possible impact on air quality in London and noise levels in the local community. Heathrow said it would seek the views of locals on the environmental impact of expansion and how the airspace around Heathrow is managed. Over the past year, we ve been working hard to evolve our expansion plans and have come up with several new options to deliver it more responsibly and affordably, said the airport s Executive Director for expansion Emma Gilthorpe. The new discussions are separate from a previously announced government consultation on a National Policy Statement on airports, and is focused on the airport s plans for infrastructure and the impact on the local community. Transport secretary Chris Grayling has said that the government aims to give the go-ahead to the new runway in the first half of 2018. The latest consultation will launch on Jan. 17 and run for 10 weeks. | 1 |
Over half of non-Donald Trump voters in Tuesday’s Republican primaries say they would consider a third party or independent candidate should the businessman pick up the Republican nomination for the White House.
The Fox News exit poll taken among voters in Missouri, Illinois, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, shows that six-in-ten non-Trump GOP voters would consider a third party candidate if the general election matchup was Trump versus Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton.
Four-in-ten Republican primary voters overall would consider a third party or independent candidate, while approximately five-in-ten of late deciders would consider the same choice, Fox News’ exit poll said.
Trump himself has repeatedly raised the possibility of running an independent campaign should he be treated “unfairly” by the Republican Party, despite signing a pledge to support whoever the eventual Republican nominee may be.
Billionaire and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was understood to have been considering a third party run in recent months, but eventually decided against a run after concluding that there was not a viable route to victory, and his candidacy would likely hand the Republicans the White House.
| 1 |
CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry will visit Addis Ababa next week for talks with his Ethiopian counterpart, a foreign ministry spokesman said, in a bid to end a standoff over a multi-billion dollar dam project on the Nile river. The dispute, which also involves Sudan, centers on control of a share of the waters of the Nile that stretches 6,695 km (4,184 miles) from Lake Victoria to the Mediterranean and is the economic lifeblood of all three countries. Cairo says the dam would threaten water supplies that have fed Egypt s agriculture and economy for thousands of years. Ethiopia says the Grand Renaissance Dam, which it hopes will help make it Africa s largest power exporter, will have no major effect on Egypt. It accuses Cairo of flexing its political muscle to deter financiers from backing other Ethiopian power projects. Delegations from Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia met in Cairo in November to approve a study by a French firm commissioned to assess the dam s environmental and economic impact. But negotiations stalled when they failed to agree on the initial report with each blaming others for blocking progress. Sudan s Irrigation Minister Moataz Moussa said Egypt was unwilling to accept amendments to the report put forward by Khartoum and Addis Ababa. Sudan and Ethiopia had expressed concern over several points, especially the proposed baseline from which the study would measure the dam s impacts, Moussa said in November. Another source of disagreement is whether Ethiopia plans to complete construction before negotiations over water flows have finished. It s clear they don t want to reach conclusions quickly. We believe they probably want to start filling the dam and complete construction while there are still some ongoing discussions, said Mahmoud Abou Zeid, Arab Water Council Chair and former Egyptian irrigation minister. He said this would violate an agreement signed by all three countries in Khartoum in 2015 meant to ensure diplomatic cooperation and stem fears of a resource conflict. Cairo fears the 6,000-megawatt dam, being built by Italy s largest construction firm, Salini Impregilo SpA, and due for completion next year, will reduce the flow it depends on for drinking water and irrigation. Egyptian officials say safeguarding the country s quota of Nile water is a matter of national security. No one can touch Egypt s water ... (which) means life or death for a population, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said last month. | 0 |
One courageous Navy vet has had enough of the disrespectful NFL players who kneel during the national anthem. Although it would be a great honor for the vet to receive an award, he put standing up for and defending our flag before being recognized for his service. Good for him A disabled Navy veteran said he declined to accept an award at a New Orleans Saints game due to the controversy over players protesting during the national anthem.The Saints organization was going to honor retired Cmdr. John Wells, the executive director of Military Veterans Advocacy, with the Peoples Health Champion award during last week s game in New Orleans, according to The Advocate.On Wednesday he told the organization he was unable to accept the award at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome because of the anthem protests. Saints players have been seen kneeling before the anthem and some continue to do so during the national anthem. Although I am touched and honored to be selected for such an award, the ongoing controversy with NFL players disrespect for the national flag forces me to decline to participate in the presentation, Wells said. I am unable, in good conscience, to enter an NFL stadium while this discourtesy prevails. Since this award is tainted with the dishonorable actions of the NFL and its players, I cannot accept it. Wells served in the Navy from 1972 to 1994 and afterward became an attorney concentrating in military and veterans law, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune. He was set to receive the award given by Medicare to senior citizens who have made significant accomplishments.The Saints said in a statement Thursday that they were disappointed by Wells decision. FOX News | 1 |
(Reuters) - President Donald Trump opened the door to an overhaul of the U.S. immigration system and vowed to pursue massive tax relief for the middle class in a speech to Congress on Tuesday as he sought to rebound from a chaotic start to his presidency. Following are some of the main themes of Trump’s speech: Trump promised new steps shortly to “keep out those who would do us harm” and said his administration had been working on improved vetting procedures. He said the vast majority of people convicted for terrorism-related offenses since the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, had come from outside the United States and vowed the country should not “become a sanctuary for extremists”. He said the United States should switch away from lower-skilled immigration and adopt a merit-based system, adding that Republicans and Democrats could work together to achieve immigration reform as long as it focused on improving jobs and wages and strengthening the country’s security. Construction of a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border will begin soon, Trump said. Throughout his election campaign and in the first weeks of his presidency, Trump said Mexico would pay for the wall, but he made no mention of that on Tuesday. Trump called on Congress to repeal and replace Obamacare. He said reforms should lower the cost of healthcare and ensure people with pre-existing conditions have access to coverage. He proposed tax credits and expanded health savings accounts for people to purchase health insurance. Legal reforms should also protect patients and doctors from unnecessary costs that drive up the price of insurance, he said. Trump vowed “historic” reform to reduce the corporate tax rate to make U.S. companies more globally competitive and promised “massive” tax relief for the middle class. He gave no new details on the tax reforms he would like to see and made no mention of a border adjustment tax that lies at the heart of a Republican proposal in the House of Representatives. Trump said Congress will be asked to approve legislation for a $1 trillion investment in infrastructure, financed through both public and private channels. “Buy American” and “Hire American” will be the guiding principles, he said. Trump promised to send to Congress a budget to rebuild the military, billing it as one of the largest-ever increases in defense spending. He vowed to work with U.S. allies, including in the Muslim world, to destroy Islamic State, describing the radical militant group as a “network of lawless savages.” He vowed support for NATO but said U.S. partners must meet their financial obligations. He also reaffirmed “our unbreakable alliance” with Israel. | 0 |
Comey will inevitably be remembered for the controversial role he played in the 2016 presidential election, where his agency conducted surveillance of the Trump campaign as well as investigated the Clinton camp for mishandling classified materials, giving both sides arguments for how the FBI ultimately swayed the vote.But even before the 2016 campaign, the FBI endured a number of humiliations under Comey s tenure. Most damning were revelations that the FBI was generally aware of almost every terrorist who successfully struck America over the last eight years.1. Before he bombed the Boston Marathon, the FBI interviewed Tamerlan Tsarnaev but let him go. Russia sent the Obama Administration a second warning, but the FBI opted against investigating him again.2. Shortly after the NSA scandal exploded in 2013, the FBI was exposed conducting its own data mining on innocent Americans; the agency, Bloomberg reported, retains that material for decades (even if no wrongdoing is found).3. The FBI had possession of emails sent by Nidal Hasan saying he wanted to kill his fellow soldiers to protect the Taliban but didn t intervene, leading many critics to argue the tragedy that resulted in the death of 31 Americans at Fort Hood could have been prevented.4. During the Obama Administration, the FBI claimed that two private jets were being used primarily for counterterrorism, when in fact they were mostly being used for Eric Holder and Robert Mueller s business and personal travel.5. When the FBI demanded Apple create a backdoor that would allow law enforcement agencies to unlock the cell phones of various suspects, the company refused, sparking a battle between the feds and America s biggest tech company. What makes this incident indicative of Comey s questionable management of the agency is that a) The FBI jumped the gun, as they were indeed ultimately able to crack the San Bernardino terrorist s phone, and b) Almost every other major national security figure sided with Apple (from former CIA Director General Petraeus to former CIA Director James Woolsey to former director of the NSA, General Michael Hayden), warning that such a crack would inevitably wind up in the wrong hands.6. In 2015, the FBI conducted a controversial raid on a Texas political meeting, finger printing, photographing, and seizing phones from attendees (some in the group believe in restoring Texas as an independent constitutional republic).7. During its investigation into Hillary Clinton s mishandling of classified material, the FBI made an unusual deal in which Clinton aides were both given immunity and allowed to destroy their laptops.8. The father of the radical Islamist who detonated a backpack bomb in New York City in 2016 alerted the FBI to his son s radicalization. The FBI, however, cleared Ahmad Khan Rahami after a brief interview.9. The FBI also investigated the terrorist who killed 49 people and wounded 53 more at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Fla. Despite a more than 10-month investigation of Omar Mateen during which Mateen admitting lying to agents the FBI opted against pressing further and closed its case.10. CBS recently reported that when two terrorists sought to kill Americans attending the Draw Muhammad event in Garland, Texas, the FBI not only had an understanding an attack was coming, but actually had an undercover agent traveling with the Islamists, Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi. The FBI has refused to comment on why the agent on the scene did not intervene during the attack.Via: Grabien | 1 |
MUNICH, Germany (Reuters) - Republican Senator John McCain broke with the reassuring message that U.S. officials visiting Germany have sought to convey on their debut trip to Europe, saying on Friday that the administration of President Donald Trump was in “disarray”. McCain, a known Trump critic, told the Munich Security Conference that the resignation of the new president’s security adviser Michael Flynn over his contacts with Russia reflected deep problems in Washington. “I think that the Flynn issue obviously is something that shows that in many respects this administration is in disarray and they’ve got a lot of work to do,” said McCain, even as he praised Trump’s defense secretary. “The president, I think, makes statements (and) on other occasions contradicts himself. So we’ve learned to watch what the president does as opposed to what he says,” he said. European governments have been unsettled by the signals sent by Trump on a range of foreign policy issues ranging from NATO and Russia to Iran, Israel and European integration. The debut trip to Europe of Trump’s Defence Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, to a meeting of G20 counterparts in Bonn, went some way to assuaging concerns as they both took a more traditional U.S. position. But Trump is wrestling with a growing controversy at home about potential ties between his aides and Russia, which he dismissed on Thursday as a “ruse” and “scam” perpetrated by a hostile news media. Mattis made clear to allies, both at NATO in Brussels and in Munich, that the United States would not retreat from leadership as the European continent grapples with an assertive Russia, wars in eastern and southern Mediterranean countries and attacks by Islamist militants. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence will address the Munich conference on Saturday with a similar message of reassurance. Pence will say that Europe is an “indispensable partner” for the United States, a senior White House foreign policy adviser told reporters. Mattis told a crowd that included heads of state and more than 70 defense ministers that Trump backed NATO. “President Trump came into office and has thrown now his full support to NATO. He too espouses NATO’s need to adapt to today’s strategic situation for it to remain credible, capable and relevant,” Mattis said. Mattis said the United States and its European allies had a shared understanding of the challenges ahead. Trump has alarmed allies by expressing admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Mattis, however, has spoken out strongly against Russia while in Europe. After talks with NATO allies in Brussels on Thursday, he said that he did not believe it would be possible to collaborate militarily with Moscow, at least for now. The Europeans may need more convincing that Washington stands with it on a range of security issues. “There is still a lot of uncertainty,” Sebastian Kurz, Austria’s foreign minister, told reporters. “The big topic in Munich is looking to the USA to see which developments to expect next.” European intelligence agencies have warned that Russia is also seeking to destabilize governments and influence elections across Europe with cyber attacks, fake news and propaganda and by funding far-right political parties. “We should be under no illusions about the step-change in Russian behavior over the last couple of years, even after Crimea,” British Defence Minister Michael Fallon said, referring to Moscow’s 2014 annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula. “We have seen a step-change in Russian military aggression, but also in propaganda, in misinformation and a succession of persistent attacks on Western democracies, interference in a whole series of elections including ... the United States.” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg held talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Munich, seeing progress on encouraging Moscow to be more open about its military exercises that the alliance says are unpredictable. Russia says it is the Western alliance, not Moscow, that is destabilizing Europe by sending troops to its western borders. “We have different views,” Stoltenberg said of the crisis in Ukraine, where the West accuses the Kremlin of arming separatist rebels in a conflict that has killed 10,000 people since April 2014. Russia says the conflict is a civil war. In the latest incident, Lithuanian prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into a false report of rape by German soldiers stationed there on a NATO mission to deter Russia. Mattis, without explicitly citing the case, rallied to the defense of German forces as he spoke in the German city of Munich. “I have great respect for Germany’s leadership in Europe – and for the ethical performance of your troops on the battlefield,” he said. U.S. intelligence agencies concluded last year that Russia hacked and leaked Democratic emails during the election campaign as part of an effort to tilt the vote in Trump’s favor. McCain acknowledged concern in Europe and beyond that America was “laying down the mantle of global leadership” and cited global trends he found disturbing, including hardening resentment toward immigrants and an unwillingness to separate truth from lies. McCain urged the forum not to give up on the United States. “Make no mistake, my friends: These are dangerous times, but you should not count America out, and we should not count each other out,” McCain said. | 1 |
MAPUTO (Reuters) - Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi has sacked four ministers, including those with the foreign affairs and energy portfolios, his office said late on Tuesday, without giving a reason. Energy is a key portfolio in Mozambique, which has vast untapped offshore gas reserves that are being developed by oil majors such as Italy s Eni. Nyusi s office said Ernesto Max Elias Tonela had replaced Leticia da Silva Klemens as minister of energy and mineral resources and Jose Condugua Antonio Pacheco was the new foreign minister, replacing Oldemiro Baloi. The president also replaced the ministers of industry and trade and of agriculture and food security. Tonela, the new energy minister, previously served as commerce minister. An economist by training, Tonela has also worked previously on the board of the Hidroelectrica de Cahora Bassa (HCB) company responsible for Mozambique s 2,000 megawatt hydroelectric dam. | 0 |
Yes, There Are Paid Government Trolls On Social Media, Blogs, Forums And Websites February 26th, 2014
Do you want solid proof that paid government shills are targeting websites, blogs, forums and social media accounts? For years, many have suspected that government trolls have been systematically causing havoc all over the Internet, but proving it has been difficult. But now thanks to documents leaked by Edward Snowden and revealed by Glenn Greenwald, we finally have hard evidence that western governments have been doing this. As you will see below, a UK intelligence outfit known as the Government Communications Headquarters, through a previously secret unit known as the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group, has been systematically attempting “to control, infiltrate, manipulate, and warp online discourse”. This should be deeply disturbing to anyone that values free speech on the Internet.
It isn’t just that the British government is trying to influence what people are thinking. The reality is that this is far bigger than a mere propaganda campaign. As Greenwald recently noted on his new website , the “integrity of the Internet itself” is at stake…
By publishing these stories one by one, our NBC reporting highlighted some of the key, discrete revelations: the monitoring of YouTube and Blogger , the targeting of Anonymous with the very same DDoS attacks they accuse “hacktivists” of using, the use of “ honey traps ” (luring people into compromising situations using sex) and destructive viruses . But, here, I want to focus and elaborate on the overarching point revealed by all of these documents: namely, that these agencies are attempting to control, infiltrate, manipulate, and warp online discourse , and in doing so, are compromising the integrity of the internet itself.
So what techniques are the British using to control and manipulate discourse on the Internet? According to Greenwald, the documents that Snowden has uncovered show that they are willing to sink to despicable lows in order to get the results that they desire…
Among the core self-identified purposes of JTRIG are two tactics: (1) to inject all sorts of false material onto the internet in order to destroy the reputation of its targets; and (2) to use social sciences and other techniques to manipulate online discourse and activism to generate outcomes it considers desirable. To see how extremist these programs are, just consider the tactics they boast of using to achieve those ends: “ false flag operations ” (posting material to the internet and falsely attributing it to someone else), fake victim blog posts (pretending to be a victim of the individual whose reputation they want to destroy), and posting “ negative information ” on various forums.
The following is a list of Internet infiltration techniques that were listed on one particular slide that Snowden leaked…
– Infiltration Operation
– Sting Operation
You can check out this slide for yourself right here .
There is also evidence that the Canadian government has been involved in this sort of thing as well. Natural News …
You’ve probably run into them before — those seemingly random antagonizers who always end up diverting the conversation in an online chat room or article comment section away from the issue at hand, and towards a much different agenda. Hot-button issues like illegal immigration, the two-party political system, the “war on terror” and even alternative medicine are among the most common targets of such attackers, known as internet “trolls” or “shills,” who in many cases are nothing more than paid lackeys hired by the federal government and other international organizations to sway and ultimately control public opinion .
Several years ago, Canada’s CTV News aired a short segment about how its own government had been exposed for hiring secret agents to monitor social media and track online conversations, as well as the activities of certain dissenting individuals. This report, which in obvious whitewashing language referred to such activities as the government simply “ weighing in and correcting ” allegedly false information posted online, basically admitted that the Canadian government had assumed the role of secret online police .
You can see a video news report about this activity up in Canada right here .
Are you disturbed yet?
You should be.
So what kind of people are the governments of the western world targeting online?
Well, when it comes to the U.S. government, all you have to do is to look at their official documents to see who they consider the “problems” to be. For much more on this, please see my previous article entitled “ 72 Types Of Americans That Are Considered ‘Potential Terrorists’ In Official Government Documents “.
Sadly, the reality of the matter is that the days of the free and open Internet are numbered. The governments of the world are increasing their control over the Internet with each passing day, and eventually a time will likely come when we will not be able to communicate openly like this any longer.
Things have gotten so bad in the U.S. already that even Google is spooked …
A recent court decision that endorsed a broad view of the Federal Communications Commission’s authority over the Internet has Google and other Web companies nervous.
In closed-door meetings with regulators and Capitol Hill staff, Google’s lawyers have said they’re worried how the FCC may use its newfound powers, according to multiple people familiar with the meetings.
The extent of the FCC’s authority over Google and other Web services remains unclear, and the current FCC has given no indication that it is interested in pushing aggressive new regulations. But the possibility that the commission could begin telling Google how to organize its search results or handle its users’ data is enough to spook the company’s army of Washington lobbyists.
And this is just the beginning.
If you think that the control freaks that are running things now are bad, just wait until you see the next generation of control freaks.
For example, there is one prominent student writer at Harvard that apparently believes that free speech at her university should be abolished and that any professor that does not advocate for her politically-correct version of “justice” should be fired …
A student writer at Harvard University is raising eyebrows after publishing her belief that free speech on campus should be abolished and professors with opposing views be fired.
Sandra Korn, a senior who writes a column for the Harvard Crimson newspaper, thinks radical leftism is the only permissible political philosophy, and the First Amendment only hinders colleges from brainwashing students with her viewpoint.
“Let’s give up on academic freedom in favor of justice,” states the subtitle of her Feb. 18 column , in which she insists Harvard stop guaranteeing students and professors the right to hold controversial views and conduct research putting liberalism in a negative light.
“If our university community opposes racism, sexism, and heterosexism, why should we put up with research that counters our goals?” Korn asks.
This is what control freaks always want.
They always want to shut down those that are presenting opposing views.
They don’t believe in free speech and a “marketplace of ideas”. Rather, they believe in shoving what they believe down the rest of our throats.
And now we have solid proof that the governments of the western world are paying people to manipulate discourse on social media, blogs, forums and websites.
So will there be great outrage over this, or will the apathetic public just roll over and ignore this like they have so many other times the past few years?
My guess, most will just roll over and ignore this. People don’t care. Hammerstrike
At least I know why people disagree with me other dem intrenets now, they are paid trolls! Paid by the governement to spread falsehoods and hurt muh feelins! seth datta
Most of my comments get deleted by bankster paid control freaks if they don’t troll my comments. Banksters truly are the psychopaths destroying the world. K
The amazing thing is, they are not that hard to spot. But since like so many other things, people will not face the truth. This information will only help a very few. For those of you still sitting on the fence. How much more evidence do you need? How many more ways does the Government have to mess with you? What will it finally take, to say enough? Rodster
“Don’t confuse me with the facts. I already made up my mind.” SupernaturalCat
“The amazing thing is, they are not that hard to spot. But since like so many other things, people will not face the truth.”
Indeed. Never underestimate the power of denial. DJohn1
This is called doing anything for a paycheck. Otherwise known in the world as prostituting for money. Snowden probably has a few other “surprises” in the material he has not released yet. This also dates back to way before the internet was ever thought of. PR firms for the government have been making fun of anything that they truly want to hide. Such as any legitimate UFO reporting over the last 50 or so years. Anyone with a thorough knowledge of Solar System Astronomy was made to feel like a nut as far back as the 50s. One Russian Scientist came up with a fantastic theory of how Venus came to be where it is in the Solar System. In 1949 or 1950 scientists all over the planet wanted his books banned from publication and actually boycotted anyone that would pub his work. His theory said that Venus was extremely hot(800 degrees Fahrenheit). That the planet had a weird rotation. That it possibly came into the Solar System around the time of Joseph of Egypt and 400 years later caused the plagues of Egypt under Moses. That placed it in BIblical times. Well Venus does have a weird day. It is longer than its year. Venus is full of hydrocarbons and carbon dioxide. It has an atmosphere much thicker than the Earth’s. All of which sort of lend credit to the theory. It is volcanic and has a very hot surface. In 1950, astronomers were guessing that Venus was a twin to Earth with a slightly higher temperature. Possibly 150 at the equator and comfortable at the poles. Then the Russian Drones sent to Venus told an entirely different story and blew all of the astronomers out of the water. I hope I am embarrassing them for their efforts to ban the man from publication. He spent his years at Princeton University after leaving Russia. Two aspects of the theory should make us all sit up and listen. He claimed the Hydrocarbons rained oil over the surface of the Earth and that might be where a lot of Earth’s supply of oil came from. The Russians are acting on that theory to find new oil reserves. The second aspect is that Venus played a kind of bounce game as it came down through the Solar System and removed the second planet from the Sun in the process and dumped it out further in the Solar System. He thought that Mars was originally in the orbit where Venus is today. His theory was that mankind forgot what happened in a kind of national amnesia. IF what he says was true, then Mars could have had a thick enough atmosphere and water to support life! More important it might have had a thick magnetic layer that filtered out the Sun and kept the planet temperate at one time. All of which was ruined as Venus dragged it out of orbit. That might have happened in biblical times. The Earth might have been slightly closer to the Sun with a 360 day year instead of 365 and a quarter day year. This of course is all speculation until we go out there and find out the real truth of what is going on. My own guess is that if there is life on Mars it is in caves under the surface with a slightly heavier atmosphere and possibly seas in these huge caverns. If there is any surface life left, it is likely to be about the size of a dog or a racoon. If there is large life, I suspect it will be Sand Worms deep in the sands of Mars. I mention this because it is very easy to ridicule ideas. The one I just told you about actually happened in the 50s and was ridiculed coast to coast by actual scientists. We are in a universe with over 100 billion galaxies out there. The number of stars with life possible is at a fantastic number. If one in a million stars has life, that is still a whole lot of life out there. The only explanation that makes sense to me is we are far off the trade lanes between the stars. Otherwise we would have been contacted years ago. Or have we been? I suggest that when a civilization reaches the level of using Atomic Bombs then that civilization bares watching. We had a lot of UFO activity after World War II and the setting off of bombs all over the planet as governments tested these weapons. Governments all over the world that are big enough are probably hiding a lot of things from all of us. I think we might all be amazed at just exactly what has been withheld. NowAlive
This is quite a postulation on the mere evidence that was correct, namely the temperature of Venus. The plagues of Egypt were localized. You had firstborns killed unless you used a passover lamb. Second, what about the oils raining down all over the Earth? I was quite young when Valdez crashed. The oil rig explosion in the Gulf is more recent. The hydrocarbon dumping would have killed off most life on the planet. Basically my point is that observational science shows that virtually none of what you just stated has been proven or even has any legitimate evidence. It’s wild speculation. I’m not an astrophysicist, but I doubt you are either. The governments hiding things is obvious. This in no way shows life on Mars or Venus dumping oil or switching orbital positions. It does not even slightly point to alien visitations or life. I’m not trying to offend you. I’m just trying to understand what you just said in a way that shows there is some evidence for it. DJohn1
You are quite right. It is wild speculation on my part. Except the temperature is not the only evidence. Venus rotates the wrong direction in its spin or day. It is the only planet in the entire solar system to do so. The day is 268 of our days long. The year is 222 of our days. That the temperatures are so high could just be the closeness to the Sun. The atmosphere is 15 times thicker than our planet’s atmosphere. That speaks to me that something unusual is going on. As for the oil, it is showing up in places that only a rain of oil might explain. The critical thing that we do not know is When it occurred or if it occurred at all. If I am right, there is a good possibility that the Moon will have some fairly large deposits of oil under the surface. There is a lot of unexplained discoloration on face of the Moon. If there is oil under the surface of the Moon, it might also mean that the Moon was a small planet at one time with an atmosphere and life. Again, I am speculating. The theory did not come from astrophysics. It came from examining a lot of stories all over the planet from the approximate time of Moses. That was Velinkovsky’s specialty, ancient languages and psychology of ancient cultures. Rastus
A field of study that you may or may not have heard of is called “catastrophism”. Not without its critics and highly controversial among biblical scholars, you may find the subject a good scratch to your itch. A book by Donald Wesley Patten called “Catastrophism And The Old Testament” might be in accordance with your fancy. Johnny
Are you speaking of Immanuel Velikovsky? He is the Author of Worlds in Collision. He points out the chaos of the universe. I found him interesting to read in 1958. DJohn1
Yes. He was not a specialist in astronomy. He simply pointed out what the beliefs of the ancient world were. He did upset the scientific world of his time. I think he was at least 50% right about things. We now know that Venus could not have come from Jupiter or Saturn. My own thought is that it had to come from the outer solar system or beyond. We have well over 100 moons around the planets. Most of which are around the gas giants. Most of which have a nickel/iron core. None of which could have come from the major gas giants in the Solar System. They had to come from something much more dense and much older. The man most likely to shake the core beliefs of astrophysics and astronomy is an accomplished astronomer, Dr. Mike Brown. What he is finding is there are a series of small, Pluto sized planets, some with small moons in the outer solar system. Scientists have been looking in the wrong place. Of the four new planets he has found, they seem to be 40-50 degrees off the orbits of the gas giants. Some are in extremely comet like orbits and at least one is on its way out of the Solar System. I am no scientist. A lot of what I read about it makes little sense with current theories. Unless there is something out there that is big enough to drag small planets and moons out of their original orbits around the Sun. Some think we have a brown dwarf about a light year out at the edge of the Sun’s influence(gravity). So far no one has found it. I think we are looking in the wrong places. IF there is a brown dwarf, it is quite small as stars go. IF it is in a comet-like orbit, then somewhere down the road it will return causing all kinds of changes in the Solar System. IF it has planets around it, then those planets might cause a lot of destruction as they come close to existing planets and moons in our solar system. Our planets as viewed from the North and top of the Solar System rotate around the Sun counter-clockwise. IF this brown dwarf is rotating clockwise around the Sun, that might complicate finding and plotting an orbit for it. IF it is way off the angle that most planets orbit the Sun, that might also keep it from being discovered. I do find it interesting that a lot of astronomy telescopes are moving towards the South Pole for observations. Known Brown Dwarf Stars do exist around stars in our stellar neighborhood and some are independent of any other stars all within about 12 light years of our Sun. A lot of what we do know is kept fairly low key and doesn’t really get a lot of news headlines. How many people know about Dr. Brown’s work in the outer solar system? How many know about the gap(hole) in the orbits of the ORB cloud? A gap big enough for something the size of Venus or much larger could have made in the outer asteroid belt. I think it is possible that an object possibly the size of a gas giant might be out there somewhere but so little light is coming from it that we will only discover it by accident. What is significant is we are still learning about new planets in our own solar system. The governments have spent enormous amounts of money in this area through NASA. So someone must think we have things out there we need to know. GrimReaperLady
I found your reply facinating! There is no way we are the only planet with life. I think I am going to go read some scientific journals, any suggestions. jaxon64
Awesome distraction technique…you turned a discussion of govt media control and trolling into a lengthy discussion of planetary formation?…truly masterful. You deserve a raise. DJohn1
Thank you. Just for the record, I have no salary from the U.S. Government for trolling. The only funds from them I see is my monthly Social Security Check as someone that has retired. Not sure how long that lasts before they steal what they haven’t all ready spent out of the general fund. The true masters are the PR people hired to keep the sheep all sleeping peacefully while the government steals everything in sight. I started getting suspicious about 20 years ago, when the entire newspaper business stopped mud raking and went with bland stories handed out by the wire services. It appears stirring up things has legal penalties and newspapers do not want to get hung up in legal battles. So they run news from wire services and leave the real reporting to others. Making advertisers angry has financial penalties as well, so lord help the reporter that angers an advertiser. Everything is wrapped up in money motivations. That above anything else is what has destroyed the country’s estate that used to bring down the crooked politicians. The only way this related to planetary formation is that this media was used to go against this man by scientists that were angry at his claims. These scientists literally boycotted the publishers willing to pub his work. My own thought is that controling the scientific discovery press is just as bad. Jonathon von Tischner
A good video on that is “Return of the Nephilim” by Chuck Missler. DJohn1
Immanuel Velikovsky wrote the book in question. Worlds in Collision was the title. He was wrong about a lot of things. For instance I do not think it is possible to have Venus come out of Jupiter. The elements are different. Venus has a heavy core vs Jupiter has a Hydrogen and Helium core. What he did get right was a lot of facts about what Venus actually consisted of. My own idea is Venus might have been a wondering planet not orbiting any Star. I mentioned this man because by coincidence he did get a lot of things right. His ideas should not have been debunked or censored in any way. How was Venus created? I think it might have come from Brown Dwarf that was coming apart at the seams. That would make it a whole lot older than Velinkovsky thought. The idea is Brown Dwarfs might have a lot of heavy materials on them than regular stars and gas planets. We have an entire solar system full of heavy objects like that. We also have at least 4 gas giants that consist mostly of hydrogen and helium. The question is where did all of those heavy material objects consisting of nickel/iron cores come from? That is a question that most astronomy scientists do not have a good answer yet. 2¢Wurth
Wow, less than two sentences into the article and the icon of Gary2 started appearing on the left and right sides of the screen. I used to think of a troll as a small ugly creature, now I think of this perverted looking plastic muppet who barks out this “take from the rich, give to me” mantra. Must be very weird living in that world… Chris
Yes the Purple colored Cookie Monster from Sesame Street! seth
Half my comments get deleted or trolled outright. There is little to no freedom of speech in the West. Heck, other countries are the lands of the free, relatively speaking. blackciti_fo5
So they’re doing with the internet what has already been done to television basically? Great. Just great. Eric Blair
Those who propose that only one perspective is viable and that all competing viewpoints should be abolished by decree are the worst trolls of all, no matter what ideals they hold up to justify their actions. America was founded on the idea of freedom, and primarily freedom of speech and ideas. Any who would seek to deter that freedom are as tumors on the political body of this country, and as such should be excised lest their disease continue to spread. Goebbels and Bernays would be proud of such people, but they have no place in a truly free country. Nicholas Mull
yes brotherjohnf
We have been telling people this for years as we have battled these trolls for more than a decade. People just refuse to believe it. Sad. Syrin
Anyone reading my unrelenting attacks on GARY at Michael’s other web site knows that I believe without a doubt he is a paid disinformation gov’t agent. NO ONE can read the facts that Michael presents, and logically reach the conclusions he does when faced with pages of data and facts unless they are brain dead or have an agenda. He might have both. Guest
LOL. I don’t think Gary is a disinformation agent. I think he’s just an angry man who feels that he’s owed something. But that’s just my opinion. jaxon64
agreed…now gay vet may actually be a troll. Gary at least discusses the issues,-albeit from his redundant and close-minded viewpoints which are inalterable by facts—yet gay vet and a few others are always trying to distract from the topic and turn any intelligent discourse in the comments section into a name calling and Repub vs Democrat discussion. His very name was probably chosen to distract from article content. Another tactic I see from some here consistently is that if anyone mentions any faith, or God or just finishes a post with “God help us”…then trolls who never post anything else will pounce in and start attacking God—I think the true motive is to turn the conversation toward one of atheism/religion/creation instead of the topic of the article… You see it from the same people over and over–then they disappear and someone new with a different moniker will take their place ( quite possibly the same shill but different name.) All said, they are very effective at distraction if one reads through the comments, they often take over an entire article and it never gets back on topic. Gay Veteran
speak of trolls and jaxon64 pops up.
“…yet gay vet and a few others are always trying to distract from the topic and turn any intelligent discourse in the comments section into a name calling and Repub vs Democrat discussion…
hey Einstein, get a clue, there is no differences between the 2 parties
…His very name was probably chosen to distract from article content….”
I’ll choose my own name, j-hole.
“…Another tactic I see from some here consistently is that if anyone mentions any faith, or God or just finishes a post with “God help us”…then trolls who never post anything else will pounce in and start attacking God…”
OR you post something incredibly stoopid and get hammered for it FirstGarden
You know a tree by its fruit. Veteranforpeace
Some folks take pride in being prime slime. They’re so desperate for attention that any kind would be better than none. Veteranforpeace
They’ll do it for buck too, Paid prime time slime.
Facts seldom stand in the way of what someone wants to believe English Kev
I think Gary has genitalia dimension disorder. Syrin
Michael, I actually believe the gov’t push to take over the internet will HELP America. Why? because most Americans are fat, lazy brain dead zombies who let Jon Stewart do their thinking for them. They’re intellectual sloths and are 100% unaware of the noose being placed around their neck. HOWEVER, they are internet addicts, and take away an addicts fix, and he/she will react potentially violently. It might just shake enough people from their stupor to effect meaningful change. FirstGarden
How dare you speak my mind? :-)
Media-mesmerized couch potatoes. Derp
So basically, what you’re saying is that the only way to save the internet (and all that it represents) is to destroy it? Apple Cider
Your beliefs step on the rights of free citizens and we are not here to serve your needs. Please stick your head in a bucket of water and drown yourself. Gay Veteran
you’ll get more truth from Jon Stewart than from the corporate media (including Fox) rkb100100
Public sector employee unions troll everything. FirstGarden
The New “Free Speech”– no speech tolerated but their own. (If you disagree, you’re automatically a hater and a phobe.)
The New “Diversity”– Everyone except veterans and white males in their 50s.
The New “Constituency”– Left wing voting blocks
(Formed by tax incentives to corporations for target hiring; promotion of welfare vs. workfare.) Rastus
Their father is the “father of lies” FirstGarden
Aye, but he is an equal-opportunity father, with children in many a camp. Derp
Freedom of Speech means that you have the freedom to speak your mind. That doesn’t mean that what you say is automatically correct or true. FirstGarden
You’re correct. Unfortunately, Statism does not tolerate free speech, dissent, nor true diversity. Joey D’Fixer
I dont know why they even bother anyway. Its not like this garbage works and they are so easy to spot. For instance, on YT, they are always a dead give away, as for 95% of the time, they use a First and Last name, which from what i can tell, is autogenerated through some script they use. I had seen in a video, the FedBizOpps site putting out a contract for a system to make multiple IDs for use in some Social Media program. If i recall, it was the Air Force or something like that. Operation Earnest Voice was another one as well. But they basically log in through some front-end of sorts, and they dont actually use YT like we do. The profiles are ALWAYS empty: no dates, no vids, no likes, no uploads, no playlists, nothing on the ‘About’ section. Its all pure vapor.
And Cass Sunstein was the one who recommended all this in his paper, calling it ‘cognitive infiltration’, and who is another Dr Goebbels wanna-be and who should be hung from a tree. And its not like they are ‘going to change our minds’ on anything. Troll or no troll, if i dont like what youre saying to me, i have 3 words for you ‘Go F yourself.’ This is what actually enrages me more than anything, that they feel everyone but themselves, are going to be that malleable, zombified and sloth-like, to just believe everything they spew. If its one thing i hate, its people with superiority complexes, they are just a total scourge on the planet and its mindset of every control-freak authoritarian out there, past, present and future. Randall Thrift
The illusion of privacy is just that, AN ILLUSION. My granddaddy always taught me that once an idea, thought, or opinion leaves you mind it is no longer private and you no longer should have any expectations of privacy. In today’s world of the high tech social media this truth is more evident than ever. GrimReaperLady
Wow that is scary, this my last post until I think this through. Captain Canuck
Yeah if you guys are worried about Obama’s NSA, then you wouldn’t believe Prime Minister Harper. He’s diabolical. He’s managed to remove or control most press and cameras from Parlaiment Hill. This is huge, as media used to have access and reporters had a presence at the capital. He’s also managed to muzzle ANYONE who comes out and questions the Big Oil agenda. c p
Corrupt governments hate free speech, and ours will be gone for good with the next major terrorist attack or natural disaster. Then the internet will be every bit as dumbed down as the broadcast media. Blitzkrieg
Oh Gay Veteran… Paging Gay Veteran. Blitzkrieg
…and Gary — if they’re not already the same person. Gay Veteran
sorry junior but I detest our fascist government Charles Reece
By the way, since Britain and America are BOTH English-speaking countries – and the closest of allies, along with France; that therefore, England is ALREADY “in league” with whatever almost EVERTHING that the U.S. does in the first place, AND therefore, given Edward Snowden’s revelations of the U.S. Government’s intelligence apparatus “spying” on its own citizens; that accordingly, why not EXPECT Britain to do the “same” – to not only their OWN people, but also ours as well, anyway.
And besides, truly, during the 1960’s, the English-speaking countries; such as England itself, and Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have already been SHARING “signals-intelligence” information – or electronic “eavesdropping” information – with each other and with Uncle Sam; through the ECHELON electronic eavesdropping network; which was set up back in 1964.
By each member nation of ECHELON electronically spying on each other’s respective private citizens – and passing on intelligence-gathered information to the OTHER member nations; that consequently, each member nation could actually CIRCUMVENT their own respective government’s laws PROHIBITING ECHELON from “spying” on its OWN country’s citizens. They’ve been doing this ever since ECHELON was “set up” back in ’64. But very few Americans have already known about what’s been “going on” all of these past five decades; that being, with ECHELON members permitting each other to electronically “spy” and “share” intelligence information dealing with each other’s country’s citizens. Thus, by ONE member nation allowing ANOTHER one to gather information on its own citizens – and sharing that same “information” with the others; that consequently, each member nation COULD NOT legally be “accused” of violating its own respective government’s laws prohibiting domestic spying. BART SIMPSONSON
Hey, it’s just another means of getting the prog’s agitprop out there and countering any notion of Free Speech on the internet. In case you haven’t noticed they also pretty much have the non-Fox TV news networks, channels, and programs fellating them daily……. James
It’s not really a surprise tho is it? And I don’t think it’s a Lib vs Dem thing, I imagine most governments do it. And it’s not just governments either. Big business is up to exactly the same thing. Big pharma, oil companies spreading disinformation about climate change. Sad times we live in really, difficult to know who to trust on the Internet these days. We all seek out the stories and opinions that support our view on the world. ButIDigress
In any society, most people do nothing. It’s up to the minority to defend the naive majority. It’s how things are done. Bob G
If I read the article correctly the government is targeting conservative thought. I always wondered why liberals would deliberately read conservative web sites and then harass the commentators. I certainly have no wish to read liberal web sites let alone comment on them. It all makes sense now. OGIS
The DNC is behind a lot of this. False flag operations to make “conservative” posters sound ignorant, stupid and racist. (Not to say that there are not elements of that in many conservatives AND liberals, but these j@ck@sses ramp it up to 11.) Tami Chapman
I almost posted this until you mentioned the Harvard Student’s article, which was taken totally out of context. Great article until the very end when you very sneakily try to place all of the blame on liberals when we all know the the real villains completely control both parties, especially the conservatives. It’s Independents like Sanders who will fight for our rights…people who are not bought by the power elite. | 0 |
BEDMINSTER, N.J. (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Thursday he was very close to making a decision on the U.S. military effort in Afghanistan, which is undergoing a review and could see an increase in troop strength. “We’re getting close. We’re getting very close,” Trump told reporters at his New Jersey golf club when asked about Afghanistan. | 1 |
(Reuters) - U.S. health insurer UnitedHealth Group Inc on Tuesday said it would largely exit the Obamacare individual insurance market in 2017, citing expectations for mounting losses from the program. UnitedHealth is the largest U.S. health insurer and one of the biggest sellers of plans on the exchanges, which were created as part of President Barack Obama’s national healthcare law. UnitedHealth sells these plans in 34 states this year, up from 25 states last year. “Next year, we will remain in only a handful of states,” UnitedHealth CEO Stephen Hemsley said in prepared remarks as part of the company’s first-quarter earnings report. The company warned investors late last year that it was losing money on the new plans and might exit the market. On Tuesday, the company raised its 2016 expectation for losses on the exchanges by $125 million to $650 million. UnitedHealth’s Hemsley said that the shorter term, higher risk profile of the new members, as well as the smaller than expected enrollment, suggested UnitedHealth could not offer plans on a sustained basis. For the first quarter, United Health’s profit was better-than-expected and UnitedHealth shares rose 1.9 percent to $130.29 in early New York Stock Exchange trading. Other health insurers including Aetna Inc and Anthem Inc are also large players on the exchanges. In recent months they said they will continue to sell exchange plans. The company has 795,000 customers from the exchanges, more than half of them new to UnitedHealth, it said. It expects about 650,000 members by year end. The government said in February that more than 12 million people had signed up for Obamacare-related insurance through HealthCare.gov or a state-based exchange as of Jan. 31. Previous government expectations had been for more than 20 million people. UnitedHealth raised its expectations for 2016 profit, in part because of a more favorable tax rate that also helped it beat Wall Street expectations for the first quarter. Lower sales and administrative costs and a decline in amortization of intangible assets also helped its first quarter results. On an adjusted basis the health insurer earned $1.81 per share, compared with Wall Street analyst expectations for earnings of $1.72 per share, according to ThomsonReuters I/B/E/S. Net profit rose to $1.61 billion, or $1.67 per share, from $1.41 billion or $1.46 per share, a year earlier. The company now expects 2016 adjusted net earnings of $7.75-$7.95 per share, up 15 cents per share from its previous estimate. | 1 |
Stereotype much? Wow! This entire statement is misleading and racist because Jeb Bush wants to paint with broad strokes the picture of just how great it will be to flood America with lots of fertile illegals. He then goes on to say that America will decline if we don t do this | 1 |
Just when you thought you ve heard the ultimate insult being hurled at Sean Spicer for being Donald Trump s fall guy and practically the dumbest person on the planet, legendary author Stephen King steps up and knocks one out of the park.As you ve likely heard by now, unless you live in a cave or something, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer pretty much denied the existence of the Holocaust by making the ridiculous statement that Syrian President Assad is worse than Adolf Hitler, because at least Hitler didn t gas people. And as you probably well know, and if you don t, shame on you, Jewish concentration camps under Hitler s Nazi regime murdered millions of Jews in gas chambers.Witnessing this stupidity alongside the rest of America and the world was Stephen King who then went after Spicer, as one should, for being so remarkably dumb.King tweeted out: If donuts were awarded for dumb, Sean Spicer would have his own Krispy Kreme franchise. If donuts were awarded for dumb, Sean Spicer would have his own Krispy Kreme franchise. Stephen King (@StephenKing) April 11, 2017To go one better, he could probably own all the Krispy Kreme franchises by now. He s that f**king dumb.We can only hope that Spicer never lives this down, gets fired and never finds work again. Now that would make America great again.Featured Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images | 1 |
While Donald Trump s team, one by one, is being connected to Russia in secretive and perhaps illegal ways, a story that s going largely unreported in American media is the fact that seven, yes seven, Russian diplomats and businessmen have dropped dead since the American presidential election.Conspiracy theorists are coming up with a lot of answers, and officially, there are a lot of unanswered questions, especially when you take into account Vladimir Putin s habit of (allegedly) killing people. Some have tried (so far unsuccessfully) to draw the line between the deaths and Trump. The latest death, though, is more specifically linked to Donald Trump.The internet found out about the death of Alex Oronov on Saturday. Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo has been following the connection since before Oronov died, but put simply, Oronov is a friend, family member and business associate of Donald Trump s attorney:Last week I wrote about Michael Cohen and his extensive network of personal and business relationships in the Ukrainian-American emigre community. One of those was a man named Alex Oronov, who runs a major agribusiness concern in Ukraine. Oronov was a partner in the ethanol business Cohen and Cohen s brother Bryan set up in Ukraine about a decade ago. Oronov is Bryan Cohen s father-in-law. Today we learned that Oronov apparently organized that peace plan meeting that brought together Ukrainian MP Artemenko, Cohen and Felix Sater. About four hours ago Andrii Artemenko, the Ukrainian parliamentarian who came to New York with that peace plan , went on Facebook to announce that Alex Oronov has died.Cohen, who is describe by Marshall as Trump s right hand man, is also involved in business with Trump. He and his family have purchases at least 12 apartments in Trump buildings. Donald Trump Jr. admitted in 2008 that a lot of Trump s assets came from Russia. Cohen may be the facilitator.We know from public records that in the last decade Trump became highly dependent on money from the former Soviet Union, both to finance mega-projects like Trump SoHo but also as a source of buyers of apartment units at Trump high-rises in New York City, Florida and other locales (The Cohen brothers and their families are purchasers of at least 12 apartments in Trump buildings 11, according to a 2006 article in The New York Post and one owned by the Oronovs, according to Florida public records.) Donald Trump, Jr. said famously in 2008 that Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia .Cohen and his extended family appear to have been part of that flow of luxury apartment purchases from people from the former Soviet Union. And Cohen himself joined the Trump Organization in the period when Trump s reliance on investment capital from the former Soviet Union for projects like Trump Soho moved into high gear.As for Oronov, he is one of four deaths that are connected to Trump. This isn t intended to imply that Trump was involved in their deaths, but there s no doubt that things are getting weirder and weirder every single day.Featured image of Vladimir Putin via Sean Gallup/Getty Images | Featured image of Donald Trump via Win McNamee/Getty Images | 1 |
President Trump and the First Lady took the time to visit the Coast Guard ahead of the Thanksgiving Day holiday. Melania proved once again that her fashion choices continue to provoke a response According to the petty liberals, she was scoring a fashion mishap during the visit. We think she s appropriate and sporty looking. There was one thing that she wore that made liberals have a fashion freak out No, it wasn t her pink gingham shirt. That s a fashion repeat that was worn as she got off Marine One a few months ago.It wasn t her Converse low-top tennis shoes IT WAS HER HAT! CHECK OUT THE VISIT:REMEMBER WHEN MELANIA CAUSED A STIR WHEN SHE WORE STILETTOS FOR HER TRIP TO TEXAS? President Trump and First Lady Melania traveled down to Texas today to assist with and show support for flood victims. You d think the press would point out that this is a great gesture by the First Couple but that s not the case. The press could only focus on the fact that the First Lady wore heels on her departure to Texas. They mocked her saying she wasn t quite ready to help flood victims: Melania s shoes are impressive but perhaps not what I would wear to a city submerged in floodwaters, wrote Elizabeth Bruenig, an assistant editor at the Washington Post.Those stilettos should help her stay above the flood line https://t.co/dQ89fK18N5 Ryan Teague Beckwith (@ryanbeckwith) August 29, 2017Melania is wearing stilettos to a hurricane zone: https://t.co/29WIwlipab erica orden (@eorden) August 29, 2017She had on all black with a pair of black stilettos Who cares? At least she made the trip! We can t say the same for Michelle Obama during the Louisiana floods!We checked into what Michelle Obama wore to visit the Louisiana floods Oops! She didn t go! Remember that she was on vacation with Barack and the girls but then came home and didn t make the trip with Barack.We checked to see if Michelle went to New Jersey after Hurricane Sandy Oops! She didn t go to that either!MELANIA GETS THE LAST LAUGH:Guess what Melania had on when she arrived in TEXAS? TENNIS SHOES! Is she ready enough now?First lady Melania Trump wore a baseball hat that said FLOTUS as she exited Air Force One upon landing in Corpus Christi, Texas, on Tuesday.First Lady Melania and President Trump arrive in Texas to be briefed on Harvey s devastating aftermath pic.twitter.com/Dz0IbQBRk3 Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) August 29, 2017The first lady had her hair pulled back in a ponytail under the black hat with white lettering.She also wore white sneakers, black pants, and a white button-up shirt.LOOKING GREAT!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOTeIa0FkG8Read more: WE | 0 |
Hillary has lost her lead in swing states OH, NV, IA and FL since the beginning of SeptemberNEW YORK CITY, New York As the first presidential debate looms later Monday evening just an hour from here on Long Island at Hofstra University, a Breitbart News analysis of current polling in the presidential election shows that Donald J. Trump the Republican nominee for president would win the election if it were held Monday and the polls are correct. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the election. With the exception of two states Maine and Nebraska the winner of a state wins that state s electoral votes on Election Day in the general election.The reliably red Republican states Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Indiana, Mississippi, Kentucky, Alabama, Tennessee, West Virginia, and South Carolina are all expected to easily vote for Trump for president. That totals 164 electoral votes.Despite initial polling scares during the darkest days of Trump s campaign in also reliably red Georgia and Arizona, both of those states per recent polling have seemingly moved solidly into the Trump column. That s another 27 electoral votes, for a total of 191 electoral votes with the other red states.From there, add in Florida with 29 electoral votes. Most recent polling out of Florida with a couple rare exceptions has shown Trump with a slight or modest lead. One outlier poll from Monmouth drags the RealClearPolitics polling average in the four-way race between Trump, Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton, Green Party nominee Jill Stein, and Libertarian Gary Johnson down to a 0.1 percent Trump advantage in the Sunshine state. But the billionaire real estate mogul leads in four out of the last seven surveys, and the only other two where Clinton has any lead it is inside the margin of error. Trump has had a comfortable cushion in Florida since Labor Day, and in the last poll conducted partially before it, he tied Clinton. Assuming Trump can lock down Florida and its 29 electoral votes that he will need to win the White House, and add that to the rest he already has, he then hits 220 electoral votes.Move from there out to Nevada and Iowa for a total of 12 more electoral votes six per each state. In the three-way race in Nevada Stein is not on the ballot in the Silver State Trump has led in every poll in September, according to RealClearPolitics. During the course of the month, the man whose name is emblazoned across the top of a golden building just off Las Vegas Boulevard has steadily increased his lead from just a point in the first September poll by NBC News, The Wall Street Journal, and Marist, to two points in a Monmouth poll a week later, to three points in the latest two surveys from Fox News and KTNV/Rasmussen. His polling average is a 2.3 percent advantage over Clinton. It is so bad for Clinton in Nevada right now that even Politico ran a headline saying the state is giving Democrats heartburn. Iowa is the battleground state where Trump is most comfortable right now. Trump has had a comfortable lead in all three Iowa polls this month from Emerson, Monmouth, and Quinnipiac and the RealClearPolitics polling average currently gives Trump a 6.3 percent advantage in the Hawkeye State walking into the debate. Fit Iowa and Nevada in the Trump column and he is up to 232 electoral votes.Next up is Maine s Second Congressional District. Maine is one of those two funky states that splits its electoral votes by congressional district Nebraska, which is solidly in Trump s column, is the other and Trump is polling significantly ahead of Clinton there. The only three public surveys done in Maine s second district all of which were done in September give Trump massive leads outside their margins of error. The first, by Emerson, showed Trump with a five-point lead over Clinton at the beginning of the month in a four-way race. A second poll from Colby College/SurveyUSA done mostly after Labor Day gave Trump a ten-point lead, and that finding was confirmed by a later poll from MPRC a progressive group that had Trump up 11 points in Maine s Second District. He was also trending upward statewide, and in the RealClearPolitics average statewide only trails Clinton by 3.8 points. But for now, let s just give Trump the place that s firmly in his column the Second District and that is just one electoral vote. With that picture, he is at 233 total electoral votes.North Carolina, another state where Stein is not on the ballot, has seen Trump trend upwards in polling during September. There has not been, according to RealClearPolitics, a single poll conducted entirely in September that has shown Clinton leading in the Tar Heel State. Trump has been leading, or the two were tied, in every three-way race poll since a Quinnipiac poll conducted partially in August and partially in September was released. RealClearPolitics has Trump s polling average at a 1.8 percent advantage over Clinton in North Carolina, but his most recent poll from Fox News put him at a five-point lead there. If Trump locks down North Carolina s 15 electoral votes on top of everything aforementioned, that puts him at 248 total and in striking distance of the presidency.This brings us to the all-important state of Ohio. The Buckeye State is another where Clinton has not seen a lead in a public poll since the beginning of September in a CBS News/YouGov poll conducted from September 7 to September 9 that showed her up seven points. That outlier poll, the only one from Ohio this month showing her ahead in the four-way race, drags the polling average for Trump down to a two-point Trump advantage. Every other Ohio poll this month has shown Trump up, including separate Bloomberg, CNN, and Fox News polls that show Trump up five points each. The Suffolk University poll mid-month shows Trump up three, and the new Breitbart News Network/Gravis Marketing survey just out on Sunday evening shows Trump holding onto the lead, up a point on Clinton. CNN s Jeff Zeleny on Sunday noted that Hillary Clinton has essentially given up on Ohio, saying, So long, Ohio: It s been 20 days since Hillary Clinton stepped foot into this classic battleground state, and she s not expected to visit it again in the month of September. He said that while Hillary Clinton s campaign is still spending money there, Ohio, the mother of all battleground states, is not in her wheelhouse anymore. If Trump locks up Ohio s 18 electoral votes, and adds them to everything else, he is at 266 electoral votes.That means he would be one state away from the presidency. From where is it going to come?Read more: Breitbart | 0 |
Goldman Sachs Endorses Hillary Clinton For President For Goldman Sachs, was there really any other choice this cycle? | October 27, 2016 Be Sociable, Share! Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, is greeted by Hillary Clinton at a panel discussion at the Clinton Global Initiative, Sept. 24, 2014 in New York.
Published in partnership with Shadowproof .
He’s with her. On Sunday, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earned the endorsement of Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein —an endorsement she had been working toward for years.
As was revealed by Wikileaks, Hillary Clinton spent the run up to her presidential campaign giving speeches to Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street banks, where she praised their talents and explained her positions on financial regulation.
On October 24, 2013, Clinton told Goldman Sachs that Dodd-Frank had to be done mostly for “political reasons” because Congress needed to look like it was doing something about the crisis. She said, “There’s nothing magic about regulations, too much is bad, too little is bad. How do you get to the golden key, how do we figure out what works? And the people that know the industry better than anybody are the people who work in the industry.”
Yes, she essentially endorsed Wall Street writing the rules because Wall Street knows its business best and complained to Goldman Sachs that regulations had frightened bankers.
“I mean, right now, there are so many places in our country where the banks are not doing what they need to do because they’re scared of regulations, they’re scared of the other shoe dropping, they’re just plain scared, so credit is not flowing the way it needs to to restart economic growth,” Clinton said. “So people are, you know, a little — they’re still uncertain, and they’re uncertain both because they don’t know what might come next in terms of regulations, but they’re also uncertain because of changes in a global economy that we’re only beginning to take hold of.”
Music to Wall Street’s ears. For Goldman Sachs, was there really any other choice this cycle? After all, they did pay Hillary Clinton $675,000 for those three speeches, and have generously supported her political career.
Despite her private comments to Goldman Sachs, Hillary Clinton has taken a tough public position on Wall Street during the campaign, likely due to Senator Bernie Sanders’ success in the primaries. Of course, Wikileaks also revealed that Clinton told the National Multi-housing Council in a private speech that “you need both a public and a private position.”
So the real question is, what do Blankfein and Goldman want in return and what is Clinton’s private position on giving it to them? Be Sociable, Share! | 1 |
1 |
|
TONIGHT @marthamaccallum interviews @VP Pence on #First100 Tune in at 7p ET on Fox News Channel! pic. twitter. During a preview of an interview set to air on Wednesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “The First 100 Days,” Vice President Mike Pence pushed back against assertions that the on the National Security Council constituted a demotion of homeland security adviser Tom Bossert and chief strategist and former Breitbart News chairman Steve Bannon. Pence said that neither Bannon and Bossert were demoted, and both are “highly valued members of this administration. They’re going to continue to play important policy roles. But I think with H. R. McMaster’s addition as our National Security Adviser, a man of extraordinary background in the military, this is just a natural evolution, to ensure the National Security Council is organized in a way that best serves the president in resolving and making those difficult decisions. ” Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett, | 0 |
Is it possible to break Thanksgiving? And if so, could last week’s chaotically divisive election have actually broken it? A story in The Times on Wednesday explores how the war between the presidential candidates might also lead to war at family dinner. Do you take the year off? Do you put a moratorium on politics at the table? You could. Or you could let Sam Sifton show you how to make a gravy so good it heals all divides. Sam runs the New York Times Food section, operates the paper’s Cooking app, does a column for The Times Magazine and actually wrote the book on Thanksgiving — 2013’s amusing, invaluable “Thanksgiving: How to Cook It Well. ” On the latest episode of Still Processing, Sam has advice for orchestrating a smooth, enjoyable feast. And so do we. (To start, make extra gravy. “Thanksgiving this year is going to be tough enough without skimping on the gravy,” Jenna says.) Sam had us over to his wonderful kitchen in Red Hook, Brooklyn, to instruct us on making that gravy (Wondra: who knew?) and talk about the rules for peace, harmony and, if you’re going that route, potluck. “This Thanksgiving is gonna be different for lots of folks all across the country,” Sam says. “Some families will be largely jubilant with some people in the corner of the table. And others will be largely sad with some jubilant outliers. . .. And if you find yourself as the outlier in one of those situations, as many Americans will at Thanksgiving, I think we just gotta — this year and perhaps always — practice radical acceptance of where you are and who you’re with. ” “The best ways to find those connections and that community is over food,” Jenna says. “As long as you don’t mess with the food too much. ” The Food section has an entire feature on Thanksgiving from all cultures, from all over the country, that is like being in 50 kitchens at the same time. If you’re taking a break from your own family’s dinner, let your mouth water at the ones the Food section discovered. Bon appétit, y’all. From a desktop or laptop, you can listen by pressing play on the button above. Or if you’re on a mobile device, the instructions below will help you find and subscribe to the series. On your iPhone or iPad: 1. Open your podcast app. It’s a app called “Podcasts” with a purple icon. (This link may help.) 2. Search for the series. Tap on the “search” magnifying glass icon at the bottom of the screen, type in “Still Processing” and select it from the list of results. 3. Subscribe. Once on the series page, tap on the “subscribe” button to have new episodes sent to your phone free. You may want to adjust your notifications to be alerted when a new episode arrives. 4. Or just sample. If you would rather listen to an episode or two before deciding to subscribe, tap on the episode title from the list on the series page. If you have an internet connection, you’ll be able to stream the episode. On your Android phone or tablet: 1. Open your podcast app. It’s a app called “Play Music” with an icon. (This link may help.) 2. Search for the series. Click on the magnifying glass icon at the top of the screen, search for “Still Processing” and select it from the list of results. You may have to scroll down to find the “Podcasts” search results. 3. Subscribe. Once on the series page, click on the word “subscribe” to have new episodes sent to your phone free. 4. Or just sample. If you would rather listen to an episode or two before deciding to subscribe, click on the episode title from the list on the series page. If you have an internet connection, you’ll be able to stream the episode. | 0 |
The Hill During a recent interview, Clooney describes conservative criticism of Democrats associated with film producer Harvey Weinstein as a little pot and kettle, noting the prior sexual harassment allegations levied against conservative figures like Roger Ailes and Bill O Reilly. Yeah, that s a little pot and kettle there, unfortunately. But I think that everything gets politicized these days. The reality is that this is a problem deeply ingrained in our society, Clooney told The Daily Beast when asked about criticisms coming from conservatives in the days since a New York Times report that detailed accusations of sexual harassment against Weinstein. It was something that was talked about a lot on the left with Roger Ailes, Bill O Reilly, and Donald Trump, and it s something that s going to be talked about a lot on the right with Harvey Weinstein, Clooney added. I think that rather than politicize it, there should be talk on both sides about the really bad behavior by powerful men and the horrible acts they commit. It s pretty crazy to me. Page Six A former ER actress claims that she was sexually and racially harassed daily on set and George Clooney helped blacklist her from Hollywood when she complained.B.S.Clooney helped blacklist me when I spoke up abt harassment on ER.'women who dont play the game lose career'I did https://t.co/ur466NCkII Ghoul Please (@vanessathought) October 10, 2017 Clooney helped blacklist me when I spoke up abt harassment on ER. women who don t play the game lose career I did, tweeted Vanessa Marquez, who played a nurse on the show s first three seasons.#NewPicWhen ur racially&sexually harassed on set daily&go2your producer(John Wells)for help in '95?U r blacklisted from Hollywood 4Ever #ER pic.twitter.com/ptM06gWW7M Ghoul Please (@vanessathought) July 7, 2017She accused actor Eriq La Salle and a crew member of being p sy grabbers and said racial abuse about her Mexican heritage came from Anthony, Noah, Julianna, referring to cast members, Anthony Edwards, Noah Wyle, and Julianna Margulies.Marquez said she complained to executive producer John Wells. Wells was the boss&I 1st reported it to him.His 1st question: Did George do something to u, she tweeted. | 0 |
So much for the cute little puppies and clydesdales Budweiser has created a Superbowl Ad that is creating a lot of controversy. The 1-minute ad tries to explain to origins of the company s co-founder, Adolphus Busch, by focusing on the fact that he was an immigrant.The ad starts out with an actor who is playing Busch being told, You re not wanted here! Go back home! The vice-president and ranking executive for Budweiser brand in the U.S., Ricardo Marques, claims that this is not related to what is currently going on in the country in regards to illegal immigration.Yeah right..Budweiser took a big hit in stock prices yesterday after Americans discovered the news about their Super Bowl ad: Gateway Pundit | 0 |
President Donald Trump should expand the economy by welcoming illegal immigrant consumers, rather than by boosting Americans’ wages and productivity, says a growing chorus of establishment voices on Wall Street, the federal government, and industry. [“There are millions of [illegal] immigrants living in this country … [who] are not going out and shopping,” because of Trump’s enforcement policies, said Robert Kaplan, the head of the Federal Reserve of Dallas, and a voting member of the Federal Reserve which regulates the economy by adjusting interest rates. “They are staying home,” Kaplan complained during a May 31 presentation at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. “They’re afraid if they go out they may not come home. ” Advocates for greater immigration rarely describe legal and illegal immigrants as imported customers. But those advocates are often quick to declare that enforcement of immigration laws will reduce consumer spending in the United States, to the disadvantage of businesses. For example, one advocacy group declared in March 2017 that: The Partnership for a New American Economy (PNAE) for instance, estimates that undocumented [illegal] immigrants wielded $157. 3 billion in purchasing power as of 2014 — which is money spent in numerous U. S. businesses. The PNAE is a group run by major business leaders who stand to gain from more imported consumers. That demand for imported consumers is also echoed by Wall Street advisors, such as Mark Zandi, at Moody’s Analytics, who predicted that reduced immigration would lower housing prices. In 2015, Google chairman Eric Schmidt bluntly called on the federal government to import more consumers. “Most stock markets assume modest growth, so how are you over a couple of decades to deal with the fact that of your [aging] customers are going to go away? … Well, one [way] is to produce more customers through immigration,” he said, adding that companies could also grow if they export more products and services. But business will get more consumers in American once a better economy draws more absent Americans from the sidelines and into the economy, said an official at Trump’s Office of Management and Budget. “We do expect consumption growth to be faster going forward than it has been in recent years, but this is more a of faster economic growth overall spurred by productivity growth,” said an official. “As firms invest more because of the Administration’s policies, labor productivity growth will rise and overall output will be higher. This is the main source of the increased growth in consumption that we expect,” he added. Business executives and their allies are already complaining that Trump’s immigration policies are nudging up Americans’ wages, as well as reducing consumer spending. For example, Patrick Harker, president of the Federal Reserve of Philadelphia, recently complained that Trump’s immigration policies are forcing up wages by enabling a labor shortage. “We’re feeling real tightness [in the labor market] and part of this is related to immigration policy,” he said. “Tightness” is the term used to describe a shortage in workers in the labor market. In a “loose” market for labor, workers compete against other workers for jobs, so allowing employers to pay lower wages. In a tight market, where there are plenty of unfilled jobs, employers must bargain with employees by offering higher wages and benefits, plus better condition and treatment. That “tight labor market” pressure also prods employers to find, recruit and train marginalized workers, including some of the millions of men who have quit the labor market since 2008. A tight labor market also pressures employers to invest in boost their workers’ productivity by buying machinery, such as tractors, forklifts, and robots. In turn, higher productivity means the employees can be paid more while still creating profits for Wall Street investors. Overall, the economy grows in line with growing productivity and growing population, either born or imported. The last time the nation achieved a tight labor market was in the late 1990s, just before President George W. Bush largely ended enforcement of immigration in 2001. The head of Trump’s main budget office, former Rep. Mike Mulvaney, recently dismissed business complaints about a tight labor market. Millions of Americans have fallen out of the labor market since the 2000s, he pointed out, saying “if you created economic opportunity and jobs that they want, they would come back. ” “So I’m not worried about the tightness of the labor supply,” Mulvaney told The Wall Street Journal. The OMB official told Breitbart: The participation rate among averaged 84. 0 percent in 2000, but by 2016 had dropped to 81. 3 percent. If the same labor force participation rate had obtained in this age demographic in 2016 as it had in 2000, that would imply an extra 3. 4 million people working [and consuming] in 2016. This is only a rough, but illustrative, indicator of the number of people who could hypothetically be in the labor force if we had maintained the peak participation rate that we had achieved in 2000. In fact, that huge number of missing workers are caused by the government policies, admitted a top economic advisor to President Barack Obama. “This [dropout] is caused by policies and institutions, not by technology,” said Jason Furman, an economist who chaired Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors. “We shouldn’t accept it as inevitable,” he told a Brookings Institute expert, Dave Wessel in August 2016. Furman continued: The fraction of prime age men who are working or looking for work has fallen continuously since the 1950s. In the early 1950s, 98 percent of men in that age bracket had a job … [or] were actively looking for one. Today, that fraction has fallen down to 88 percent. … Understand it is quite large. The difference between a recession and a normal economic period is maybe two percentage points on the employment population ratio … so this is something that is more like 10 percentage points … The fraction of prime age men who are working or looking for work has fallen continuously since the 1950s. In the early 1950s, 98 percent of men in that age bracket had a job … [or] were actively looking for one. Today, that fraction has fallen down to 88 percent. In another measurement, dubbed the “employment to population ratio,” the percentage of men is stuck at 85. 3 percent, well below the 89. 7 percent rate in 1999, leaving at least 2 million men sidelined and out of sight. Take a closer look at the EPOP from today’s #JobsReport with @EconomicPolicy’s Autopilot Economy Tracker https: . pic. twitter. — Teresa Kroeger (@teresakroeger) June 2, 2017, In April, Kaplan called for the work participation be raised via additional training of workers — not via higher wages that would encourage workers to get their own training. He said: Although the labor force participation rate for workers is about 88 percent for college graduates and 81 percent for those who have attended some college, it is only 76 percent for those with a high school diploma and only 66 percent for those who have less than a high school diploma. In short, where there is substantial labor slack in the economy, it is highly correlated with segments of the population with lower levels of educational attainment. While there are a variety of reasons for this correlation, individuals in these segments would benefit from additional skills training in order to be more productive members of the workforce. The U. S. employment rate for men lags far behind the rate in Germany. During the 2016 campaign, Trump promised to change immigration rules to favor Americans, saying: When politicians talk about “immigration reform” they mean: amnesty, cheap labor and open borders. The [2013] immigration bill was nothing more than a giveaway to the corporate patrons who run both parties. Real immigration reform puts the needs of working people first — not wealthy globetrotting donors. We are the only country in the world whose immigration system puts the needs of other nations ahead of our own. Since his election, Trump has sharply reduced the inflow of illegal immigrants — but has not yet penalized companies that employ illegals. He has begun reforms to the programs, such as the program, but has not tried to slow or pause legal immigration. Each year, the federal government provides companies with 1 million new legal immigrants, plus 1 million temporary such as and workers. This inflow loosens the labor market, to the huge disadvantage of working Americans, and especially the four million Americans who enter the workforce each year. For example, the inflow of cheap labor cuts Americans’ wages and salaries by roughly $500 billion per year, nearly all of which is transferred to company owners and investors, according to data provided by the National Academies of Sciences in 2016. Also, the NAS report shows that federal, state and local government provide legal and illegal immigrants with at least $56 billion of taxpayer cash and aid each year, nearly all of which flow back into companies selling food, shelter, autos, retail products, and other consumables. So far, there is no hard data evidence of a national surge in Americans’ wages, despite handwringing about labor shortage by business groups. But there are a growing number of anecdotes about employers grudgingly raising wages, although mostly for workers. According to May 31 edition of the Federal Reserve’s “Beige Book”: Labor markets continued to tighten, with most Districts citing shortages across a broadening range of occupations and regions. Despite supply constraints impeding the ability of firms to attract and retain qualified workers, most Districts reported that employment continued to grow at a modest to moderate pace. Similarly, most firms across the Districts noted little change to the recent trend of modest to moderate wage growth, although many firms reported offering higher wages to attract workers where shortages were most severe. A manufacturing firm in the Chicago District reported attracting better applicants and improving retention for its unskilled workforce by raising wages 10 percent … Respondents in several sectors [in the Boston region] mentioned tight labor markets. None of our manufacturing contacts reported any significant hiring moves either up or down. A maker of envelopes said that they expected to hire significantly in the near future but not right now. Several manufacturing contacts said it was hard to find qualified workers. A manufacturer of semiconductors and related goods said that they had to raise starting wages to fill vacant positions in New England. A manufacturer of furniture said that retaining new hires was a major challenge as some workers quit within days of being hired. Staffing firms continued to report strong labor demand and tight labor supply. They singled out the following positions as particularly hard to fill: systems administrator, network engineer, and medical assistant. All contacted staffing firms indicated that bill and pay rates had increased … Pennsylvania staffing firms have remained very busy since the start of the year. Contacts from staffing firms in labor markets with lower unemployment rates have noted greater wage pressure, while contacts operating in markets with higher unemployment rates report minimal wage pressure … [Near Cleveland,] High turnover remains an issue in the freight transportation industry. In order to retain drivers, one firm increased driver pay by 3 cents per mile, equating to a 7. 5 percent wage increase. Attracting qualified applicants for manufacturing jobs is difficult, and many newly hired workers prove to be unreliable. That said, competition for workers is strong and is driving up starting wages … [In Richmond] Generally, contacts reported labor shortages for computer scientists, computer engineers, data scientists, welders, and technicians. Also, more manufacturers had difficulty finding quality workers for technical roles. Wages increased modestly for firms in most industries, and employment agencies said that clients had started to increase wages for positions that remained unfilled … There are also some anecdotes about companies which respond to wage pressure by buying machinery — much of which is made by Americans workers. According to Bloomberg: At Task Force Tips, which makes nozzles, a robot performs a task a person used to do, grabbing a valve from a miller and handing it off to a mechanized partner that feeds it into the final processor. By adding a dozen bots over the past four years, McMillan said, he’s been able to keep the family business thriving in the face of stiff competition from countries including China. And the company payroll in Valparaiso, Indiana, has stayed steady at about 250. Task Force Tips doesn’t fire anyone when it brings in a robot, McMillan said. Instead, people are for jobs such as machine operator or technician. That keeps morale up and allows employees to see the machines as an advantage, gadgets that can do menial chores humans find tedious … But many other companies are hoping imported labor can keep wage increases off the table. The Wall Street Journal reported: Ariens Co. a maker of lawnmowers and snowblowers, faces a bottleneck in its plans to raise production 40%. It can’t find enough workers. The Brillion, Wis. company bused some Somali refugees from nearby Green Bay to help, but they weren’t enough, and it is spending up to $15, 000 a month on recruiting. “We see the demand right in front us,” said Chief Executive Dan Ariens. “It’s very frustrating. ” Follow Neil Munro on Twitter @NeilMunroDC or email the author at NMunro@Breitbart. com | 0 |
21st Century Wire says These family members made the president s life miserable, and a few just might continue for years to come Three members of our Top 10 actually managed to get stage time for the balloon drop at the closing of this week s Democratic National Convention.Notably, #3 on our list, Roger Headache Clinton moshed to the DNC s new pop anthem Stronger Together but it appears this has already been cut out of most mainstream video footage.As #8 on our list, Jeb would say, Please clap Not to be outdone: BROTHERLY LOVE: Hillary Clinton s brother, Hugh Rodham (center), seen lurking about the convention stage. THE BROTHERS RODHAM: Tony (left) and Hugh Rodham make #6 on our list of most embarrassing presidential family members as brothers-in-law of ex-President Bill Clinton.Certainly, these men may have just edged Billy Carter right off all master lists.WATCH THIS VIDEO AND MORE HEREREAD MORE ELECTION NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire 2016 Files | 0 |
KINSHASA (Reuters) - At least 30 Burundian refugees have been killed in clashes with Congolese security forces over plans to send some of them home, a Reuters witness and local activists said on Saturday. Police and soldiers opened fire as the refugees protested over the plan in the town of Kamanyola in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo on Friday, the activists told Reuters. Congo s government spokesman Lambert Mende denied that those killed were refugees, saying that the clashes broke out when assailants from an unidentified armed group attacked an office belonging to the national intelligence agency. Five soldiers and 20 of the attackers were killed in the fighting, Mende said. More than 400,000 refugees have fled Burundi - including 40,000 to neighboring Congo - since violence erupted in April 2015 when President Pierre Nkurunziza said he would seek a third term in office, a move his opponents said was unconstitutional. Wendo Joel, an activist from a Congolese pro-democracy and human right group, said the refugees had seized a weapon and killed a soldier as they tried to free some of their arrested compatriots. The soldiers first fired in the air but there were many refugees, Joel told Reuters. I have counted 32 bodies. There are also about 100 wounded. Reuters TV footage showed more than 30 bodies covered by sheets on the roadside in Kamanyola, with many more wounded also lying in the street. A U.N. spokeswoman confirmed that at least 18 Burundian asylum seekers had been killed but said the toll was likely to rise. Many others had taken shelter at the U.N. peacekeeping mission s nearby base, she added. According to a spokesman for the U.N. refugee agency, more than 2,000 Burundian refugees live in Kamanyola with host families. In a statement, Burundi s main opposition grouping, CNARED, accused Burundian army troops and members of the ruling CNDD-FDD s youth group Imbonerakure of carrying out the killings with the Congolese army. Burundian officials could not be immediately reached for comment, but Burundi s foreign minister Alain Aime Nyamitwe wrote on Twitter: My heart sinks as I learn of the shootings in Eastern #DRC. Clarifications are needed on the shootings & circumstances around, he added. The violence in Burundi has killed over 700 people and a U.N. commission said last week there were reasonable grounds to believe authorities had committed crimes against humanity. The government rejected the commission s findings as propaganda . | 1 |
“The Largest Unprosecuted Charity Fraud Ever Attempted”. November 07, 2016 ormer U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks during a news conference at the United Nations in New York in this March 10, 2015 file photo.
Before WikiLeaks Podesta emails were released, Wall street investment analyst Charles Ortel called the Clinton Foundation “the largest unprosecuted charity fraud ever attempted”
The Wall Street investment analyst, has been looking into the Clinton Foundation since the spring of 2015. Ortel explains why he believes the Clinton Foundation is a “crooked charity cooking the books” with over $2 billion dollars in revenue, in an exclusive video interview for The Daily Caller News Foundation.
The Clintons, according to Ortel, have figured out how to turn their public service into a business. This charity is “a perfect gathering place and a front” to act as if you are helping others, when in fact they bring powerful people together, concocting deals and making people rich, including the Clinton's, Ortel says.
Ortel’s charges raise the specter that the IRS and other government agencies are picking winners and losers for charities now with two sets of rules. Tea party groups, as well as Democrat Congresswoman Corrine Brown, who is facing over 300 years in prison for her $800,000 slush fund, faced the wrath of government, while the $2 billion Clinton charity that bends rules, goes without scrutiny, he says. Ortel gave a candid evaluation of the Democratic candidate, he said the Clinton's are not “worthy to clean the brass on the White House doorknobs” let alone be the leader of the free world. | 1 |
NUSA DUA, Indonesia, (Reuters) - When students at Indonesia s prestigious Institute of Agricultural Studies swore an oath to support a caliphate in the world s largest Muslim-majority country last year, a video of the event went viral and the government grew alarmed. Months later, Indonesian President Joko Widodo banned the decades-old hardline group Hizb ut-Tahrir Indonesia (HTI), which organized the student pledge, and declared its goal to set up a caliphate was incompatible with the constitution and could threaten security. Last month, under prodding from the government, thousands of students across the nation made an anti-radicalism pledge. It followed an unprecedented gathering in late September of some 3,000 academics in Bali, who also pledged to fight extremism and defend the secular constitution. The campaign against extremism in education comes amid a rise of a hardline, politicized Islam in Indonesia, which until recently had occupied the fringe of the nation s politics. Radical organizations can spread like a virus in universities, said Professor Muhammad Sirozi, rector of the State Islamic University Raden Fatah in Palembang on Sumatra. These are not the organizations that students form themselves, but they are from outside, he said at a briefing that outlined ways to help universities tackle radicalism following the Bali conference. The campaign to root out boosters of the caliphate is not just confined to schools. A document collated by Indonesia s intelligence agency lists 1,300 HTI members in senior posts in the civil service, universities, the military and police. An intelligence source confirmed the authenticity of the document, which was reviewed by Reuters. Some of those on it declined to comment after being contacted, but HTI s former spokesman Ismail Yusanto said it did include some of its members. Illustrating how a politicized brand of Islam has gained traction, nearly 20 percent of high school and university students in Indonesia support the establishment of a caliphate, a survey showed last week. Moreover, around one in four of the 4,200 Muslim students in the survey by pollster Alvara said they were, to varying degrees, ready to wage jihad to achieve this. Hizb ut-Tahrir, an international organization, established by a Palestinian Islamic scholar in 1953, has been banned in some Arab, Asian and European countries. One of its former members in Indonesia is Bahrun Naim, who went to fight for Islamic State in Syria and is accused of masterminding a series of attacks in Indonesia since early last year. An officially registered organization in Indonesia since 2000, HTI has sought a judicial review in the constitutional court over its disbanding. They never gave us a chance to defend ourselves. Is it not an authoritarian and repressive action? said HTI spokesman Yusanto, who likened the crackdown to the tactics used against opponents under former strongman President Suharto. Asked whether HTI was still operating, Yusanto said no one could ban members from their duty to do Dakwah (missionary work) and those activities would continue. Higher Education Minister Muhammad Nasir told reporters in July that HTI members were lecturers in many universities - Indonesia has 394 state universities and about 3,000 private ones. He warned they could be sacked unless they proffer loyalty to Indonesia s secular ideology Pancasila, or five principles . Yusanto said, however, no lecturers who were HTI members had been sacked. A Home Ministry spokesman said a task force set up to find members in the civil service had not found any so far. One former HTI member, Ayik Heriansyah, said the group tries to enlist support from influential members of society and sympathizers in the security forces to overthrow governments, or what it terms the handing over of power . Universities have been a key recruiting ground. Heriansyah, who was once chairman of HTI at the University of Indonesia, said potential recruits were usuallyinvited to an Islamic study group. After about three months, they might be asked to participate in intensive Hiz b-ut-Tahrir study, said Heriansyah, who said left the group after a falling out with its central board. Heriansyah said the ban on the group would simply push it underground. They are still running the movement as usual, but with a new structure and stewardship, he said. HTI has not disclosed its membership. Raymond Arifianto, a research fellow at Singapore s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said his sources say HTI had about one million members, including an estimated 10-15 percent of junior army officers as members or sympathizers. A spokesman for Indonesia s military denied this. The group has also gained a strong presence in state universities that train public school teachers, meaning new teachers could spread HTI ideology to high school pupils. A survey published last December by the Institute for the Study of Islam and Society, showed that 78 percent of 505 religious teachers in public schools supported implementing sharia law in Indonesia. The survey also found that 77 percent backed Islamist groups advocating this goal. Muhammad Abdullah Darraz, director of the Maarif Institute, which promotes religious and cultural harmony, said HTI had targeted religious lessons at state high schools to spread its ideology. Clerics offered their services for free, often with school principals and teachers being unaware of their affiliation, he told Reuters.HTI s spokesman denied this was a strategy but said members were obliged to do missionary work without charge. Indonesia s biggest Islamic groups, the moderate Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah, which claim to have about 120 million members between them, back the crackdown on HTI. Yaqut Cholil Qoumas, chairman of NU s GP Ansor youth wing, said that Indonesia had been built by many religions and cultures, but HTI came and wanted to change this diversity into one nation called an Islamic country. | 1 |
June is LGBTQ Pride month. That means that there are pride flags celebrating LGBTQ peoples across the planet popping up everywhere. This year, they have sprung up all over Facebook in the form of pride flag reaction buttons. Between reactions and flag emojis Facebook is very colorful and very proud this year.Unfortunately, one Facebook page that belongs to a church (presumably real as they post an address on their page) called the Warriors for Christ decided to try and ruin everyone else s fun when they published a post promising to ban anyone who uses the rainbow flag emoji on their page.The original post has been taken down. Thankfully, screenshots were taken of the post by the Friendly Atheist, writing for Patheos.Screenshot found via PatheosThe post has unleashed a mass of LGBT supporters, who are now bombarding the page with pride flag reactions and pro-LGBTQ sentiments. The page admin(s) responded exactly as you might expect, with venom. The admins stupidity reached critical mass when they alluded that Satan himself had summoned LGBTQ supporters to plague them. I couldn t be more, well, proud of the internet s response to such a bigoted sentiment. Living in a post-marriage-equality world, many people may think that we are also living in a post-homophobic world as well. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, 2016 was the deadliest year on record for LGBTQ individuals. Analysts have concluded that the current political climate has influenced this uptick in violence.Now, more than ever, LGBTQ people and their allies need to stand together proudly and visibly to denounce bigotry and homophobia. As the LGBTQ rights activist, Harvey Milk once said, If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet also destroy every closet door in the country. Milk s tactic of encouraging LGBT people to come out of the closet proved to be a very effective tactic in combating prejudices. It s good to see the tactic has been carried over into the digital world, with millions of people showing everyone publicly that they stand with LGBTQ people.Featured image via Warriors for Christ Facebook page logo with rainbow filter and screenshot added | 1 |
WASHINGTON () - The top Democrat on the Senate environment committee on Monday asked the Environmental Protection Agency’s internal watchdog to audit a recent trip to Morocco by the agency’s head to determine if it was in line with the EPA’s mission. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, in a trip to Morocco last week, promoted U.S. liquefied natural gas. Senator Tom Carper asked EPA Inspector General Arthur Elkins to expand its current audit of Pruitt’s travel to include the trip to Morocco as part of a U.S. trade mission. “I request that you review the purpose of Administrator Pruitt’s travels to determine whether his activities during each trip are in line with EPA’s mission ‘to protect human health and the environment,’” Carper wrote in the letter to Elkins. Traditionally, the EPA, which regulates clean air and water, does not promote the U.S. energy industry. Last week, the EPA announced that Pruitt attended bilateral meetings in Morocco where he “outlined U.S. environmental priorities for updating the Environmental Work Plan under the U.S.-Morocco Free Trade Agreement and the potential benefit of liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports on Morocco’s economy.” Liquefied natural gas is produced by cooling natural gas until it is condensed into a liquid, allowing it to be shipped via tanker instead of moved by pipeline. It is reconverted into gas at the other end. When asked why the head of the EPA was involved in touting LNG, EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox said Pruitt discussed the role of U.S. technology and innovation abroad, “including but not limited to LNG.” It “only serves to emphasize the importance this administration has placed on promoting U.S. businesses,” Wilcox said. Carper said the Morocco travel has cost taxpayers $40,000 and that gas exports do not fall within the agency’s jurisdiction. The Inspector General’s office is already reviewing all travel by Pruitt conducted until Sept. 30 after Democratic lawmakers asked for a review of Pruitt’s frequent travels to Oklahoma, his home state. | 1 |
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China said on Saturday it will ban exports of some petroleum products to North Korea, as well as imports of textiles from the isolated North, to comply with a United Nations Security Council resolution. The Ministry of Commerce said in a statement on its website that China would limit exports of refined petroleum products from Oct. 1, and ban exports of condensates and liquefied natural gas immediately. Imports of textiles from North Korea would also be banned immediately, the statement said. (Corrects headline to make clear some petroleum exports banned) | 1 |
What Trump actually said was: Our police are amazing. Our local police they know who a lot of these people are. They are afraid to do anything about it because they don t want to be accused of profiling and they don t want to be accused of all sorts of things. You know, in Israel they profile. They ve done an unbelievable job, as good as you can do. But Israel has done an unbelievable job, and they ll profile. They see somebody that s suspicious, they will profile. They will take that person and they ll check out. Do we have a choice? Look what s going on. Do we really have a choice? We re trying to be so politically correct in our country. And this is only going to get worse. The above screenshot shows the contradiction. CNN indicates that Trump is supporting racial profiling, while they go on to show his exact quote where he does not state racial .H/T [ Breaking 911 ] | 1 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.