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So someone HATED this Oasis documentary so much that they voted Brexit
@Amznmovierevws over on Twitter has spotted an interesting review:
Brilliant. Being SO ANGRY about Amazon recommending an Oasis DVD that you vote Brexit.
He’s like a man with a fork in a world of soup. As Noel once said about Liam. | 1 |
Washington War Party Urges Obama to Go to War Against Assad & the Russians
Clinton fans call on Obama to “save Aleppo” as NATO-GCC-backed ‘rebels’ prepare new offensive Originally appeared at Newsbud
On October 21, The Washington Post published a noteworthy op-ed titled “Bring Syria’s Assad and his backers to account now,” written by retired U.S. Marine General John Allen and self-proclaimed Syria expert Charles Lister. Allen is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and serves on the board of advisors of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), an American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) cutout. The retired four-star general attracted a lot of attention earlier this year when he delivered a forceful endorsement of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton at the Democratic National Convention.
Lister was formerly a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center in Qatar and is now a senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Middle East Institute, which describes itself as “an unbiased source of information and analysis” on the Middle East and partners with corporations such as Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Chevron, ExxonMobil and Saudi Aramco. Lister has dismissed conflict of interest allegations by saying his contact with the Syrian opposition “had absolutely nothing to do with Qatar” and stressing that his “work on this is 100% funded by Western govts.”[1]
Allen and Lister harshly criticize U.S. “inaction” in Syria in their October 21 op-ed, emphasizing that “the Assad clique and its backers must be brought to account before it is too late.”
The authors’ case rests on the premise that U.S. policy in Syria has been characterized by inaction and “has never sought to decisively influence the tactical situation on the ground.”[2]
Since the beginning of the conflict, advocates of greater U.S. military involvement have tried to promote the myth of “U.S. inaction in Syria.”
Even after U.S. media disclosed the existence of a CIA weapons supply and training program in summer 2012, efforts to promote this myth continued unabated.
In early 2013, about eight months after The Washington Post first reported that the United States is coordinating the flow of weapons to the so-called “Syrian rebels,”[3] the editorial board of The Washington Post warned of the “consequences of U.S. inaction in Syria,” accusing the Obama administration of not doing enough to support the “rebels.”[4]
Neither The Washington Post nor any other major media outlet in the United States has been willing to publicize the true extent of U.S. covert operations in Syria, which started as early as April-May 2011.[5]
From the very beginning, U.S. policy sought to decisively influence the tactical situation on the ground in favor of the foreign-backed anti-Assad opposition. But instead of exposing the U.S.-led war on Syria, the media has been feeding into the false narrative of “U.S. inaction in Syria.”
Referring to this narrative, Allen and Lister call for accelerating and broadening the provision of lethal and nonlethal assistance to “vetted moderate opposition groups.”[6]
The United States’ vetting process of militias plays a central role in all of Lister’s policy proposals.[7] What Lister fails to mention is that this vetting process consists of nothing more than trace searches in old databases and half-hearted interviews. U.S. Special Forces soldiers on the ground in Turkey and Jordan told SOFREP that many “rebels” had sympathies with terrorist groups but knew exactly how to sell themselves during such interviews.[8]
As U.S. Special Forces soldiers on the ground voice their indignation over a mission that nobody believes in because they are just training the next generation of jihadis, Allen and Lister want to increase U.S. assistance to “vetted” groups in order to “save Aleppo,” which has become the focal point of the Syrian conflict:
“For a start, the United States must save Aleppo. Damascus, Moscow and Tehran are razing the city to prepare for an eventual ground assault. As both the CIA and Pentagon have concluded, an opposition loss in Aleppo would severely undermine the United States’ counterterrorism objectives in Syria. The city’s symbolism and strategic value are unmatched, and allowing it to fall would dramatically empower extremist narratives. Groups linked to al-Qaeda would reap the rewards of our shortcomings.”[9]
At the beginning of October, just hours after the U.S. suspended talks with Russia over Syria, The Washington Post reported that the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff are pressuring President Obama to approve “kinetic actions” against Syrian government forces, arguing that an opposition loss in Aleppo “would undermine America’s counterterrorism goals in Syria.”[10]
Given the fact that the opposition in “rebel-held” eastern Aleppo is led by Jabhat al-Nusra, this argument seems rather dubious.[11] Despite rebranding itself as “Jabhat Fatah al-Sham” and supposedly cutting its ties with al-Qaeda, the group is still considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the United Nations. Another group present in eastern Aleppo, Ahrar al-Sham, is also closely tied to al-Qaeda.[12]
It is not exactly clear why “groups linked to al-Qaeda would reap the rewards” if groups linked to al-Qaeda are defeated in eastern Aleppo or why their defeat “would severely undermine the United States’ counterterrorism objectives in Syria.”
If Allen and Lister want to stop empowering extremist narratives, they could start by revising their portrayal of the battle of Aleppo and the Syrian conflict in general.
Nusra and its allies are not defending civilians in eastern Aleppo, as frequently claimed, but holding them hostage in order to maintain a foothold in the strategic city, which was invaded by “rebels” in summer 2012 after refusing to join the uprising.
As soon as Syrian government forces and their allies first managed to encircle the “rebel-held” areas of Aleppo in July of this year, they announced the opening of humanitarian passages for civilians and surrendering fighters. According to the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), only “around 12 people managed to use the Bustan al-Qasr corridor before rebel groups reinforced security measures and prevented families from approaching the corridors.”[13]
Instead of telling the “rebel groups” in eastern Aleppo to stop holding civilians hostage, the United States and its allies supported a major offensive led and organized by al-Nusra to break the siege and “put some pressure back on Russia and Iran.”
One Western diplomat tried to play down the outside support, saying:
“The rebels’ problem has never been a lack of weapons. This was internally planned, and it succeeded not because of outside support but because Fatah al-Sham and the other jihadi groups are incredibly disciplined, with plenty of guys willing to blow themselves up at the front.”[14]
Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham and other involved groups referred to the Aleppo offensive as the “Ibrahim al-Youssef battle,” a reference to the Syrian army officer who led the Aleppo Artillery School Massacre in the late 1970s.
In June 1979, Ibrahim al-Youssef and members of a Muslim Brotherhood splinter group killed dozens of Alawite cadets after separating them from their Sunni colleagues. During the July-August Aleppo offensive, a spokesman for the Nusra-led forces said they would continue what Ibrahim al-Youssef had started and kill the Alawites.[15]
Ibrahim al-Youssef’s son Yasser is a political representative for the U.S.-vetted “rebel group” Harakat Nour al-Din al-Zinki, which participates in the battle of Aleppo and lately joined the Nusra-led military alliance Jaish al-Fatah. Zinki is probably best known for beheading a child captive on camera. The group reportedly lost U.S. backing in August or September of last year and was in talks with the U.S. over the restoration of its support when the incriminating footage emerged.[16]
Yasser al-Youssef has become the media’s go-to-guy for information about the “rebels” in and around Aleppo. After the Syrian government and its Russian allies recently announced a unilateral cease-fire to allow civilians and surrendering fighters once again to leave eastern Aleppo, Agence France-Presse (AFP) quoted Yasser al-Youssef as saying that opposition fighters wanted “nothing to do” with the Russian initiative and asking: “Who are they to decide to displace the Syrian people who rebelled against the dictator Assad?”[17]
Meanwhile, the Associated Press (AP) quoted Zinki’s al-Youssef as saying that the opposition had agreed to the initiative to evacuate wounded and allow in aid. According to al-Youssef, the evacuations didn’t materialize because the Syrian government and Russia gave no assurances the wounded would not face arrest.[18]
As both sides were blaming each other for the breakdown, Western journalists on the ground confirmed that “rebels” were firing on the checkpoints and exit corridors, making it extremely dangerous for anyone to leave eastern Aleppo.[19]
When Allen and Lister say “the United States must save Aleppo,” they are not referring to the civilians in eastern Aleppo who are being held hostage by the “rebels” or to the civilians in western Aleppo who are being killed by indiscriminate “rebel” shelling. They are referring to al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham, Zinki and other “rebel groups” in eastern Aleppo.
On the same day the Allen-Lister op-ed was published, Lister gleefully announced on Twitter that Ahrar al-Sham, Zinki and allied militias are preparing another offensive to break the siege of Aleppo. Nusra will of course join the fight, but “the impetus and most of the planning for this offensive largely excluded” the terrorist group, as the PR disaster during the July-August offensive is still fresh on everyone’s mind. “Regional states have provided substantial support to buttress the offensive,” according to Lister.[20]
U.S. allies Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar already provided substantial support to buttress the July-August Aleppo offensive – with the full blessing of the United States.[21] Washington’s primary objective was to put some pressure back on Russia and Iran, not to save civilians. As before, the new offensive is going to prompt an adequate response from Russia and its allies, thereby prolonging the suffering of civilians in Aleppo.
With current U.S. policy leading nowhere, the Obama administration is divided over Syria. Whereas the hawks around CIA director John Brennan and Defense Secretary Ashton Carter want to escalate the conflict, President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry are increasingly skeptical of such plans.
Obama is reportedly not willing to approve plans to supply CIA-vetted militias with more powerful weapons.
One senior U.S. official told The Washington Post that CIA-backed units are “not doing any better on the battlefield, they’re up against a more formidable adversary, and they’re increasingly dominated by extremists,” raising the question of whether the program can accomplish anything beyond adding to the carnage in Syria.[22]
The Lister-approved vetting process is apparently not working.
Moreover, the sceptics in the administration fear that the new weaponry could end up killing Russian military personnel and they want to avoid risking a confrontation with Russia.
But not everyone shares this opinion.
Due to his reluctance to escalate the conflict in Syria, Obama has alienated Washington’s foreign policy establishment, which favors more U.S. military action, including cruise missile strikes on Syrian government forces.[23]
That is also a key point of the Allen-Lister plan.
When The Washington Post first reported on U.S. plans to target Syrian government forces, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov stressed that Russian troops were now widely deployed across Syria, implying that any such attack would run the risk of killing Russian soldiers.[24]
Allen and Lister are of course aware of this risk. Explaining how to punish cease-fire violations by Syrian government forces with U.S. military action, they note in passing:
“We should expect the possible intentional co-mingling of Syrian and Russian forces and assets as a deterrent. While this may complicate targeting strategies, we should not miss the opportunity to hit offending Syrian elements and units, while sustaining counter-Islamic State operations elsewhere.”[25]
Neither Allen and Lister nor Washington’s foreign policy elite seem to mind risking a direct military confrontation with Russia. But President Obama and other sceptics in the administration don’t want to start World War III over Syria, as one senior administration official who is involved in Middle East policy emphasized:
“You can’t pretend you can go to war against Assad and not go to war against the Russians.”[26]
While the war party in Washington is waiting for Obama to leave office, Russia is preparing for a showdown in Syria with the largest surface deployment since the end of the Cold War.[27]
As Allen and Lister point out, the war party “cannot wait for a new administration in Washington” because “events are moving too quickly.”[28] They may have lost Aleppo by the time Hillary Clinton takes office.[28]
So Obama might have to deal with more “accidents,” such as the September 17 Deir Ezzor attack, during his last months as President of the United States. Did you enjoy this article? - Consider helping us! Russia Insider depends on your donations: the more you give, the more we can do. $1 $10 Other amount
If you wish you make a tax-deductible contribution of $1,000 or more, please visit our Support page for instructions Click here for our commenting guidelines On fire | 1 |
The water crisis in Flint is not just simply a man-made disaster, it is the actualization of unconstrained Republican policy. For more than a year, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and the emergency manager of Flint ignored the voices of all those who spoke out about the contamination of Flint s water. Now, Michigan is forced to rely on Obama and the federal government to rescue them.In April 2014, Flint s emergency manager forced the city to switch from using Detroit s water system to using the Flint River for water. The decision to do so was touted as a means to cut costs for the city. It turned out to be a disaster. There is an unusual amount of salt in the Flint River. The river is also extremely contaminated. So when the salt began to corrode the pipes of Flint s water system, lead leaked into people s drinking water. One study found the pipe corrosion problem could have been solved for as little as $100 a day. Now it is estimated that it will cost up to $1.5 billion dollars to fix Flint s water system. There has been massive outcry over the water system transition since day one. When evidence was shown that Flint s water had become contaminated, Snyder and the emergency manager choose not to act. That s why Snyder is currently being investigated by the EPA.For those not in the know, an emergency manager acts as the feudal lord for cities that want to behave fiscally irresponsibly. The emergency manager law was implemented by Snyder. When a local government fails to meet certain criteria, the governor appoints an emergency manager to replace the city government. The local government still exists, but those democratically elected officials do not have any real power. You might say that s just tough luck for Michiganders who elected Snyder. But you would be wrong. The emergency manager law was overturned through a ballot initiative in 2012. Snyder and Michigan s Republican-controlled state government decided to replace the law, with an almost exact copy.Now as many as 100,000 people have been poisoned by reckless neglect (and Republicans unfaltering devotion to destroying effective government.) This disaster was entirely preventable. The same way that the massive water shut offs in Detroit, that have received international condemnation, are completely unnecessary.At this point, there is no way that the Flint water crisis can be solved without receiving financial aid from the federal government. Snyder declared the disaster a state wide emergency last week, which makes it so that he can request financial aid from the federal government. Snyder must call on the Obama administration to fix his mess.Featured Image Credit: Michigan Municipal League via Flickr Creative Commons License 2.0 | 1 |
Donald J. Trump unveiled a pledge on Thursday to create 25 million jobs over the next decade, but he offered few details on how he would achieve that ambitious goal as president. In remarks that may stir new consternation abroad, Mr. Trump told the Economic Club of New York that he would pay for his economic agenda in part by requiring allies to shoulder the full cost of American military resources deployed in their defense. Mr. Trump has long criticized the country’s defense arrangements, but on Thursday, he drew an uncommonly straight line between his promises and the “billions and billions of dollars” currently spent on “defending other people. ” He specifically mentioned Germany, Japan, Saudi Arabia and South Korea as “economic behemoths” that the United States should not pay to protect. “You could ask yourself, how long would Saudi Arabia even be there if we weren’t defending them?” Mr. Trump said in his speech. “And I think we should defend them, but we have to be compensated properly. ” He added, “I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to hear that. ” Speaking at the Waldorf Astoria, Mr. Trump largely reiterated a broad economic vision he outlined in Detroit last month, vowing to slash taxes on business and scale back federal regulations, and to redraft or void trade agreements he views as disadvantageous to the United States. But Mr. Trump’s remarks also underscored the opaque and improvisational nature of his policy agenda, which has been defined by a few grand promises but few concrete details. By putting a hard number on his promises — even if — Mr. Trump may be aiming to strengthen a campaign message that has been light on policy outside the issues of immigration and trade. And Mr. Trump has now twice revised his tax proposals during the campaign, first sharply scaling back plans for a $10 trillion tax cut and then, on Thursday, backing away from several ideas that drew criticism and mockery in the past. He partly rolled back his earlier proposals to reduce corporate taxation: Mr. Trump still proposes a 15 percent tax rate on corporate income, but it would no longer apply to business income reported on personal taxes, generally limiting the lower rate to the largest corporations. He also reduced a tax break that generated backlash because it would particularly benefit real estate developers. Mr. Trump also now proposes to cut federal taxes by $4. 4 trillion, not $10 trillion he insists the plan would ultimately cost the government only $2. 6 trillion in revenue, with the difference made up in economic growth. Mr. Trump spoke loosely and plainly enjoyed himself, repeatedly teasing the crowd about their own wealth and business ventures. He put his audience on notice that he would enlist some of them in government, to help renegotiate deals far larger than any they had dealt with before. “Hate to say it,” Mr. Trump joked, “but your companies are peanuts. ” But Mr. Trump also continued to cast himself as a champion of interests, and in his remarks invoked nostalgia for the heyday of the American auto industry, steel manufacturing and coal mining. And Mr. Trump attacked his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, for having described some of his supporters as “deplorables” for holding views she called bigoted. “My economic plan rejects the cynicism that says our labor force will keep declining, that our jobs will keep leaving and that our economy can never grow as it did once before,” Mr. Trump said. “And boy, oh boy, did it used to grow. ” Mr. Trump’s description of an economy growing more slowly than it did after World War II until 2000 is accurate. But his promise to return to that postwar growth rate and add 25 million jobs over the next decade would be difficult to attain, given the nation’s shifting demographics. Part of the downshift in the growth rate since 2000 was caused by a population that has grown less rapidly than in earlier eras. And that trend is unlikely to reverse, despite Mr. Trump’s criticism in his speech of “cynicism that our labor force will keep declining. ” The Congressional Budget Office projects employment will rise by 7. 1 million over current levels by 2026 amid an increase in the labor force of eight million people. In effect, to add 25 million jobs by then, the number of people who seek to work would have to increase more than three times as much as the economists at the budget office think likely. One way would be to encourage more Americans who neither work nor look for work to do so. This group includes parents and those who see few possibilities in the work force, and their numbers have risen substantially since 2008. But even if the percentage of working to returned to its peak of the spring of 2000, that would add only about 5. 2 million more potential workers compared with current levels. Another way would be to encourage people to retire later, extending the length of their careers. A third option would be to increase immigration levels sharply over the next decade so there are more potential workers born elsewhere. Beyond promising to put many more people to work, Mr. Trump pledged to attain 3. 5 percent annual growth in gross domestic product over the next decade — versus the 2 percent that has been routine in recent years and that the Congressional Budget Office projects for the decade ahead such growth would require a steep increase in businesses’ productivity. While not articulated in these terms, his plan imagines that the slump in productivity will reverse itself if Mr. Trump’s agenda of lighter regulation and lower taxes was put into effect. The revised version of Mr. Trump’s tax plan would still substantially reduce federal taxation, replacing seven tax brackets with three and taxing most income at lower rates. Under the plan, a married couple with $50, 000 in taxable income would pay 12 percent in taxes, or $6, 000, rather than 13 percent, or $6, 572, under current law. Families with more income would save more. The top tax rate would drop to 33 percent from 39. 6 percent. More Americans would avoid paying taxes entirely, although not as many as under Mr. Trump’s earlier proposal. Mr. Trump said he wanted a $30, 000 standard deduction for married couples instead of the $50, 000 in his last plan. He also proposed a new limit of $200, 000 on deductions by wealthy couples. Mr. Trump’s proposals drew a friendly reception from his audience, particularly for his plan to reduce taxation on businesses. But he also offered reminders of the distance that separates him from many of the financiers and business leaders who typically fund Republican campaigns. He repeatedly attacked foreign trade in harsh language, and for the second time this week questioned the independence and legitimacy of the Federal Reserve. Mr. Trump charged that rather than simply doing what is right for the economy, the Fed made “the political decision every single time. ” And there was perhaps a subtler reminder of the divisive nature of Mr. Trump’s campaign: Terry J. Lundgren, the chief executive of Macy’s and the chairman of the Economic Club of New York, did not attend the speech. Under Mr. Lundgren, Macy’s pulled merchandise from its shelves last year, after Mr. Trump — who retaliated by repeatedly taunting Mr. Lundgren from the campaign trail — described undocumented immigrants from Mexico as rapists and drug smugglers. | 0 |
CAIRO (Reuters) - The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) never intended to engage in a war with the Iraqi army, minister Falah Mustafa Bakir, head of the KRG department of foreign relations, told broadcaster CNN in an interview. There is a need for dialogue between KRG and Iraq so as to reach a common understanding, Bakir said, according to a transcript of the interview published on KRG s website, adding the dispute was not about oil or the national flag but about the future of two nations. Kurdish Peshmerga forces have retreated to positions they held in northern Iraq in June 2014 in response to an Iraqi army advance into the region after a Kurdish independence referendum, a senior Iraqi commander said on Wednesday. The Baghdad central government considers the Sept. 25 Kurdish independence referendum illegal, especially as it was held not just in the autonomous KRG region but in Kirkuk and other adjacent areas that Peshmerga forces held after driving out Islamic State militants in 2014. | 0 |
Today, President Trump came one step closer to dismantling Obamacare. He signed an executive order that would allow Americans to purchase insurance across state lines. The time has come to take action to IMPROVE access, INCREASE choices, and LOWER COSTS for HEALTHCARE! https://t.co/mz5fdveTVh pic.twitter.com/dDZLsKuNSe Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 12, 2017Congressional Democrats said Thursday that President Trump s executive order to relax insurance rules is the latest evidence of Republican sabotage against Obamacare.The president signed the order that directs federal agencies to examine regulations that would make it easier for people to band together to get association health plans and buy more short-term insurance. Democrats quickly criticized the order as a back door to attack protections for people with pre-existing conditions and increase junk insurance plans. I do know it is a sabotage of the Affordable Care Act and quite frankly a disservice to the American people, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said in a press conference Tuesday.She also said Trump knows very little about healthcare legislation. Washington ExaminerPerhaps a little trip down memory lane is in order for Nancy. Remember when Nancy Pelosi coined her most memorable line in the long list of memorable Nancy Pelosi lines? Remember when Nancy attempted to explain the Obamacare legislation to a large audience, telling them, But we have to pass the bill, so that you can, uh, find out what s in it. ?Even one of her most reliable media allies, David Gregory of NBC News, who was clearly on the same team as Nancy, questioned her sanity and most especially, her knowledge of what was in the Obamacare bill, following her curious remarks:We re pretty sure that most Americans are more confident in President Trump s knowledge of the benefits to Americans, once they are able to purchase insurance across state lines than they were in Nancy s ability to understand the 20,000 page Obamacare legislation. | 0 |
Op-Ed by Laraine C. Abbey President Obama’s statement “giving up some freedom in exchange for security” [1] was a lance through my heart. Give up... | 0 |
DUBAI (Reuters) - Yemen s Houthi group has fired a cruise missile toward a nuclear power plant in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, the group s television service reported on its website on Sunday, without providing any evidence. There were no reports of any missiles reaching the UAE. The Iran-aligned Houthis control much of northern Yemen and had said Abu Dhabi, a member of the Saudi-led coalition fighting against them since 2015, was a target for their missiles. The missile force announces the launching of a winged cruise missile ... toward the al-Barakah nuclear reactor in Abu Dhabi, the website said. It gave no further details. The Barakah project, which is being built by Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) (015760.KS), is expected to be completed and become operational in 2018, the UAE energy minister has said. It is the second time this year the Houthis have said they have fired missiles toward the UAE. A few months ago they said they had successfully test fired a missile toward Abu Dhabi. | 0 |
President Donald Trump appears disappointed in China’s efforts to stop continued aggression from North Korea. [“While I greatly appreciate the efforts of President Xi China to help with North Korea, it has not worked out,” he wrote on Twitter on Tuesday afternoon. “At least I know China tried!” After meeting with President Xi Jinping in April, Trump appeared optimistic that China would help North Korea’s actions in the region, even stalling some of his aggressive actions on trade. “Look, I’ve been talking about China for years,” he told Fox News host Martha MacCallum during an interview. “Now, I speak nicely about China because I really do believe they’re trying to help out with respect to North Korea. ” Trump also addressed reports of North Korea launching missiles in May, asserting that China was “trying hard” to get them to stop. Trump’s new focus on North Korea might have been sparked by the death of Otto Warmbier — an American student who died, despite coming home to the United States after spending more than a year in a coma in a North Korean prison. “It’s a total disgrace what happened to Otto,” Trump said on Tuesday. “It should never, ever be allowed to happen. And frankly, if he were brought home sooner, I think the results would have been a lot different. ” | 0 |
Senator Chuck Schumer sounds almost breathless with excitement as he can be heard telling an unidentified person on the senate floor, He likes us. He likes me anyway. Watch:It s hard to say what President Trump thinks about Chuck Schumer. He tweeted his support for Chuck Schumer in November 2016:I have always had a good relationship with Chuck Schumer. He is far smarter than Harry R and has the ability to get things done. Good news! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 20, 2016Only 3 months later, President Trump called Chuck Schumer the head clown of the Democrats. The Democrats, lead by head clown Chuck Schumer, know how bad ObamaCare is and what a mess they are in. Instead of working to fix it, they.. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2017In March of 2017, Trump didn t appear to be much of a fan of Cryin Chuck :I certainly hope the Democrats do not force Nancy P out. That would be very bad for the Republican Party and please let Cryin' Chuck stay! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 22, 2017 | 1 |
Talk radio hosts went nuts with the news of Gore s visit to Trump Tower today. Michael Savage was very disappointed but Rush Limbaugh gave the best comment: I m gonna tell you something, said Limbaugh. If Trump goes south on climate change, that is just gonna be deeply disappointing and alarming because of what climate change is to the left. It s everything, it s everything they want and everything they believe and it s almost everything they can get to achieve it, to accomplish it. We couldn t agree more with Rush! It s just upsetting that they would even want to speak with the phony who claims global warming is real Yikes! | 0 |
Breitbart October 31, 2016
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A review of FBI Director James Comey’s professional history and relationships shows that the Obama cabinet leader — now under fire for his handling of the investigation of Hillary Clinton — is deeply entrenched in the big-money cronyism culture of Washington, D.C. His personal and professional relationships — all undisclosed as he announced the Bureau would not prosecute Clinton — reinforce bipartisan concerns that he may have politicized the criminal probe.
These concerns focus on millions of dollars that Comey accepted from a Clinton Foundation defense contractor, Comey’s former membership on a Clinton Foundation corporate partner’s board, and his surprising financial relationship with his brother Peter Comey, who works at the law firm that does the Clinton Foundation’s taxes.
Lockheed Martin
When President Obama nominated Comey to become FBI director in 2013, Comey promised the United States Senate that he would recuse himself on all cases involving former employers.
But Comey earned $6 million in one year alone from Lockheed Martin. Lockheed Martin became a Clinton Foundation donor that very year.
Comey served as deputy attorney general under John Ashcroft for two years of the Bush administration. When he left the Bush administration, he went directly to Lockheed Martin and became vice president, acting as a general counsel .
How much money did James Comey make from Lockheed Martin in his last year with the company, which he left in 2010? More than $6 million in compensation .
Lockheed Martin is a Clinton Foundation donor . The company admitted to becoming a Clinton Global Initiative member in 2010.
According to records , Lockheed Martin is also a member of the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt, which paid Bill Clinton $250,000 to deliver a speech in 2010 .
In 2010 , Lockheed Martin won 17 approvals for private contracts from the Hillary Clinton State Department.
HSBC Holdings
In 2013, Comey became a board member, a director, and a Financial System Vulnerabilities Committee member of the London bank HSBC Holdings.
“Mr. Comey’s appointment will be for an initial three-year term which, subject to re-election by shareholders, will expire at the conclusion of the 2016 Annual General Meeting,” according to HSBC company records .
HSBC Holdings and its various philanthropic branches routinely partner with the Clinton Foundation . For instance, HSBC Holdings has partnered with Deutsche Bank through the Clinton Foundation to “retrofit 1,500 to 2,500 housing units, primarily in the low- to moderate-income sector” in “New York City.”
“Retrofitting” refers to a Green initiative to conserve energy in commercial housing units. Clinton Foundation records show that the Foundation projected “ $1 billion in financing ” for this Green initiative to conserve people’s energy in low-income housing units. | 1 |
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan s telecoms regulator wrote to internet service providers this week ordering them to block the messaging services WhatsApp and Telegram but it was not immediately clear whether they had complied. Use of social media and mobile instant messaging services has exploded in Afghanistan over recent years. Social media users and civil rights groups reacted with outrage to initial reports of the move and the letter sent by telecoms regulator ATRA was widely shared on social media. Some media reports, citing unidentified sources, said the move had been ordered by the National Directorate for Security to thwart the use of the encrypted messaging services by the Taliban and other insurgent groups. It was not immediately possible to confirm the reports. The acting minister for telecommunications, Shahzad Aryobee, posted a message on Facebook saying that the telecoms regulator had been ordered to put a gradual block on the services to improve their functioning after complaints had been received. The government is committed to freedom of speech and knows that it is a basic civil right for our people, he wrote. The letter by telecoms regulator ATRA, dated Nov. 1 and signed by an official of the regulator, directed internet companies to block Telegram and Facebook Inc s (FB.O) WhatsApp services without delay for a period of 20 days. However, the service worked normally this week and still appeared to be working normally on Saturday on both state-owned operator Salaam and private service providers. On Friday, there were reports of interruptions but it was not clear whether they were caused by a deliberate shutdown or by the unrelated issues with WhatsApp services that were experienced in several countries. Mobile phone services have been one of the big success stories in Afghanistan since the Taliban were ousted from power by a U.S.-led campaign in 2001, but there are also frequent complaints from users about quality and coverage. WhatsApp and similar services, including Facebook Messenger and Viber, are widely used by Afghan politicians and members of the government as well as by the Taliban, which has a sophisticated social media operation of its own. The movement s main spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, wrote to reporters this week giving his Viber number in case WhatsApp is not working . | 1 |
Former CIA Agent Phil Mudd is a jackwagon! He threatened Congressman Trey Gowdy after hearing video of questioning from Gowdy to Ex-CIA Director John Brennan. Mudd made the threat that Gowdy should have his a** kicked . Who says something like that on National TV?https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=qLw5q_d1PxUNotice how the anchors on CNN say nothing back to Mudd to knock it off. They probably loved the threat.In case you missed it: Trey Gowdy asked a pointed question of former CIA Director Brennan: Did you have evidence of a connection between the Trump campaign and Russian state actors? Brennan replied: As I said, Mr. Gowdy, I don t do evidence. BOOM! ANOTHER EPIC FAIL FOR THE DEEP STATE AS TREY GOWDY MAKES A COMPLETE FOOL OF JOHN BRENNAN:ANOTHER EPIC FAIL For the Resistance as Trey Gowdy makes a complete fool of John BrennanAGAIN, ZERO EVIDENCE Trump Colluded w/ Russia pic.twitter.com/iCzNaEMT9C STOCK MONSTER (@StockMonsterUSA) May 23, 2017 BRENNAN WAS ASKED BY ADAM SCHIFF AND REPLIED THAT TRUMP NEVER PRESSURED TO HAVE THE FLYNN INVESTIGATION DROPPED: EX-CIA Chief John Brennan testified today before the House today and dropped a bomb of truth that President Trump didn t pressure the intelligence community to drop the Flynn investigation: Adam Schiff: With respect to the allegations made recently that the President or his aides may have sought to enlist the member of the IC or Director Comey himself to drop the Flynn investigation, uh have any members of the IC shared with you their concerns that the President was attempting to enlist the help of the people in the intelligence community to drop the Flynn investigation? Brennan: No, sir. Adam Schiff: Are you aware of any efforts the President has made who enlist the support of the intelligence community personnel to push back on a narrative involving the collusion issue that Mr. Rooney was asking about? Brennan: I am unaware of it. NOT A GOOD DAY FOR POLITICAL HACK JOHN BRENNAN! | 0 |
Donald Trump has left a slime trail across multiple decades as a public figure, reality TV star, serial misogynist and now presidential candidate. During the Republican primaries, many wondered why his fellow candidate pulled their punches, often until it was too late and he had already secured the nomination.By contrast, Democrats don t seem as if they plan to let Trump get away with the same sort of shenanigans he did within the GOP. Hillary Clinton has already begun promoting web videos taking on Trump and his racist, sexist, misogynist comments. But the real advertising power is expected to come from the super PACs, who are able to accept an unlimited amount of money (thanks to the Citizens United decision).Priorities USA, who supported President Obama s re-election and produced ads attacking Mitt Romney s record at Bain Capital, will be up on the air in June with ads hitting Trump. Our job is to be as prepared as we can to take him on in any particular instance and that s why not only will we be up on June 8, as previously reported, but we re actually going to go on the air earlier, Guy Cecil, the head of Priorities USA, told Mark Halperin and John Heilemann on Bloomberg Television s With All Due Respect. Of the $91 million of air time the super-PAC has already reserved, Cecil estimates that roughly one quarter to one third of ads will be positive, with the rest painting Trump in a negative light.Cecil also estimated that about $40 million will be dedicated to online outreach targeting blacks, Latinos, the Democratic base and millennials.Cecil told Bloomberg that Priorities will be attacking Trump will highlight his smears of women, veterans, as well as his shady business dealings. The group will also be able to look at what worked and didn t work for Republican ads that went after Trump in the primaries for an idea of how best to attack him.Featured image via YouTube | 0 |
Montel Williams, who has been fighting Multiple Sclerosis since 1999, ripped the GOP s hideous health care bill, and the Republicans who voted for it, to pieces.The American Health Care Act guts the protections for pre-existing conditions that Obamacare had provided. Under the AHCA, states could opt out of federal regulations and allow insurance companies to charge people with pre-existing conditions as much as they want. This means that sick people, the very people who need medical care the most, could find themselves priced out of insurance coverage.Williams, who has been a vocal advocate for MS, weighed in on the bill during an interview with CNN on Saturday. When by asked by Ana Cabrera what he thought of the AHCA, Williams did not hold back.What people at home don t understand, when you say terms and things like pre-existing conditions, they really are basing this on what an insurance company has stated was a pre-existing condition.So, they think about 22 percent of Americans have a problem right this minute. This is from the National Institutes of Health. Over 56 percent of adult Americans, 120 million adult Americans, have one chronic illness. And around 80 percent of them have at least two.So these numbers that people throw out are so wrong.Cabrera pointed out that Republicans have promised access to health care, but what they really mean is that you can get insurance coverage if you are rich enough to pay for it. Williams said that he is lucky to be able to afford whatever health insurance he needs, but most Americans don t have that luxury.He went on to say that many MS patients are already unable to get the medications they need to control this debilitating neurological condition because they don t have insurance. Williams explained that the medication he himself is on costs over $1,500 a month. I also have MS, and the price tag for just one of my medications tops $100,000 a year.Williams says that we need to worry about lowering costs, not signing people s death warrants with heinous bills like the AHCA. He explains that the normal American can t afford to pay these kinds of prices for the medicines that keep them alive. That s what insurance is for, he added.Watch Montel tear the GOP health care bill to pieces, here:Featured image via video screen capture | 1 |
The race card thing is getting old fast The Austin County Sheriff s Office released the dash camera video of a July 14 traffic stop of State Representative Garnet Coleman Tuesday to refute claims Coleman made last week about being disrespected and treated like a child. Coleman, as the chair of the Committee on County Affairs, held a hearing last Thursday in Austin as the first public inquiry into the arrest and death of Sandra Bland in Waller County. In that hearing, Coleman recounted his own history of being pulled over in traffic stops and gave this account of an I-10 traffic stop that happened just two weeks ago. He talked to me like I was a child, he said of the sheriff s deputy who pulled him over for speeding. He was so rude and nasty. Even when he found out I was a legislator, he became more rude and nasty. And I didn t understand why this guy was continuing to go on and on and treat me like a child. And basically like I m saying is treat me like a boy. I want to be very clear about that, Coleman said in the committee hearing. Via: Breaking 911KHOU The Texas Municipal Police Association, the Harris County Deputies Organization, the Houston Police Officers Union and the Dallas Police Union all issued demands for Coleman to apologize for his fabrication of the events in the traffic stop. Sheriff Brandes asked Coleman to apologize for his remarks about the sheriff s deputy. Instead, Coleman seemed to double down on the race card boy word. They may not have [thought it was rude], Coleman told KHOU. But they weren t sitting in my seat. And, if you know the history of my people, you know that being treated like a child or a boy is not something that we accept very well. The Houston Police Officers Union (HPOU) issued a strong rebuke to Coleman. Our organization has supported Representative Coleman during his tenure in the Texas Legislature, however, since Representative Coleman refuses to own up to the fact that his statements in committee regarding the stop were in fact not true and completely out of line, we have no choice but to discontinue our support of him. Via: Weasel Zippers Black Democratic Texas State Rep Claims Mistreatment By Police During Traffic Stop, Video Shows Anything But | 1 |
Donald Trump's son, Eric, said his father's presidential administration will "focus on" and "fix" the struggles of education in inner cities, capping a week of campaigning for the minority vote that has dogged the Republican nominee in the polls.
"You have a lot of people from inner cities, especially minorities, who aren't getting higher-level education," Eric Trump told host John Catsimatidis on his radio program "The Cats Roundtable" on Sunday. "The schools around them are totally failing them. There's 60 percent unemployment in some of these communities."
"We're not giving the youth the opportunities that they so rightfully deserve. My father's going to focus on that, and he's going to change that, and he's going to fix it because it's just not right.
Trump's calls for votes from minorities this week started with his law-and-order speech Tuesday night in Milwaukee, continuing with his mea culpa speech Thursday in North Carolina and finished with a trip to the flooded areas of Louisiana on Friday.
The campaign's focus coincided with the addition of pollster Kellyanne Conway as manager this week. There have been reports of Trump polling at 0 percent of the black vote in swing states. | 1 |
Lady Liberty will be depicted as a black women on a coin the first time in the nation s history Lady Liberty has not been a white woman the U.S. Treasury Department announced on Thursday.The coin, worth about $100 face value, is part of a commemorative series to honor the 225th anniversary of the U.S. Mint.Treasury and @usmint have unveiled the designs for the 2017 American Liberty Gold Coin. Details here: https://t.co/i7jYMD8sRi #USMint225 pic.twitter.com/nNmJotF0Ab Treasury Department (@USTreasury) January 13, 2017 The 2017 American Liberty 225th Anniversary Gold Coin is the first in a series of 24-karat gold coins that will feature designs which depict an allegorical Liberty in a variety of contemporary forms-including designs representing Asian-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, and Indian-Americans among others-to reflect the cultural and ethnic diversity of the United States, the U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement.The coin is part of a year-long celebration by the U.S. Treasury to celebrate the mint, and the theme will be Remembering our Past, Embracing the Future. KKTV | 1 |
Talk of impeaching our first African-American President is like oxygen to Republicans if they don t mention it incessantly, their tiny little brains shrivel up and they die. This is a scientific fact that I completely made up but has a strong basis in reality. Our frenemies on the right have come up with some real doozies when explaining their repeated attempts to get the black man out of the WHITE house.In 2010, Michigan Rep. Tim Walberg wanted to impeach Barack Obama in an effort to get his birth certificate. In 2012, former Minnesota state Rep. Allen Quist said that the President should be impeached because he isn t deporting brown people quickly enough. That same year, Texas congressional candidate Wes Riddle decided the black man should be impeached for satisfying the conditions of a treaty ratified under George H.W. Bush. A year prior, Tea Party Texas Rep. Michael Burgess suggested impeachment for no better reason than to block Obama s agenda. The month before that, GOP Rep. Tim Scott wanted Obama impeached because he wouldn t allow the country to default on its debts. Weeks after that, Rep. Steve King agreed with this ridiculous notion.If we were to translate all of these moronic reasons to impeach the President, they all boil down to one thing: He s black. But as monumentally stupid as those are, Oklahoma s state legislature has managed to come up with some new and original that dwarfs all previous reasons Republicans wanted to impeach the President in the scale of their stupidity. Reuters reports that Oklahoma Republicans have filed a measure calling for Obama s impeachment because of Lawmakers say they want to get President Obama out of office because he overstepped his constitution authority by protecting transgender students from being harassed by their ideological counterparts across the nation. In fact, they feel so strongly on the issue that are already taking up a measure that would allow students to claim a religious right to have separate but equal (where have we heard that phrase before?) bathrooms and changing facilities to keep them away from scary transgender people:Lawmakers in the socially conservative state are also expected to take up a measure as early as Friday that would allow students to claim a religious right to have separate but equal bathrooms and changing facilities to segregate them from transgender students.The bill introduced on Thursday night could force schools into costly construction, which would be difficult for them to complete after lawmakers significantly cut education funding to plug a $1.3 billion state budget shortfall.The impeachment resolution also introduced on Thursday night calls on the Oklahoma members of the U.S. House of Representatives to file articles of impeachment against Obama, the U.S. attorney general, the U.S. secretary of education and others over the letter.Oklahoma state Rep. John Bennett called President Obama s tyrannical decree that transgender people deserve equal rights Biblically wrong a phrase that should never enter politics and a violation of state sovereignty. In a time when our state is facing an unprecedented economic crisis, our lawmakers should be focused on righting the ship rather than stigmatizing transgender youth, Troy Stevenson, executive director of LGBT advocacy group Freedom Oklahoma, said of this ridiculous resolution.This decision comes on the heels of Oklahoma Republicans decision to make it a felony to perform abortions. Not only would doctors face time behind bars, but they would be prohibited from obtaining or renewing a license to practice medicine in this state if they allow a woman to choose whether or not to carry a fetus to term. The bill passed the House 59-9 and the Senate 32-12, so it seems likely that something equally asinine like impeaching Obama over something stupid would be just as popular.Featured image via Getty Images/Pool | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced on Tuesday it will bar certain scientists from serving on its independent advisory boards, a move critics say could open the way to more industry-friendly advisors on the panels. The EPA barred scientists who have won agency-awarded grants in the past, billing the step as a way to preserve the independence and diversity of the boards, which provide the scientific input for agency decisions around pollution and climate change regulation. “Whatever science comes out of EPA, (it) shouldn’t be political science,” EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, said in a release, adding that committee members will be “financially independent” from the agency. Senator Tom Carper, the top Democrat on the Senate environment committee, said Pruitt’s decision was part of an EPA effort to “delegitimize the work of nonpartisan scientists.” Carper added, “this crusade endangers the health of every American, and it cannot be tolerated.” Pruitt signaled the move during a speech last week at the conservative Heritage Foundation, when he questioned the independence of scientists who have won past EPA research grants, and promised to “fix” the situation. During his election campaign last year, Republican President Donald Trump promised to roll back environmental regulations from Democratic President Barack Obama’s administration, including those limiting carbon dioxide emissions blamed for global warming, to make government more friendly to the drilling, mining, and manufacturing businesses. The advisory boards were created by Congress to serve as a check on EPA policies and research. They include the EPA Scientific Advisory Board, the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, and the Board of Scientific Counselors. Last year, the SAB questioned an EPA report that concluded that hydraulic fracturing - an oil and gas drilling technology that frees petroleum from underground shale formations - had no "widespread impacts" on drinking water despite evidence of problems in several states. (reut.rs/2h2GTrD) In June, Pruitt decided not to renew the terms of nine members of a separate body, the 18-member Board of Scientific Counselors. One of those members, Michigan State University professor of community sustainability Robert Richardson, told Reuters the move came as a surprise because the work they were doing was “apolitical.” The EPA is also expected to announce three new members of the Clean Air advisory committee on Tuesday. Pruitt is an outspoken doubter of mainstream climate science, a consensus of scientists that carbon dioxide from human use of fossil fuels is a primary driver of global warming, triggering more frequent volatile storms, sea level rise, and droughts. Pruitt has said he wants to set up a televised debate about the science of climate change between scientists who believe it is driven by humans and those that do not. | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch said on Thursday that a re-examination of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico “makes sense,” but praised the 23-year-old trade pact as a “strong anchor” for markets. Hatch, a Republican from Utah, said he appreciated Trump’s desire to modernize NAFTA, adding that decisions involving tariffs should be made in consultation with Congress. “NAFTA has served as a strong anchor for our markets in the northern hemisphere and helped to expand trade opportunities for American products, goods, and services,” Hatch said. “Given that the trade pact is now more than two decades old, a re-examination of the agreement to ensure it remains the best possible deal for American workers and entrepreneurs in the 21st century global economy makes sense.” | 0 |
— A network of conservative advocacy groups backed by Charles and David Koch aims to spend a staggering $889 million in advance of the next White House election, part of an expansive strategy to build on its 2014 victories that may involve jumping into the Republican primaries.
The massive financial goal was revealed to donors here Monday during an annual winter meeting hosted by Freedom Partners, the tax-exempt business lobby that serves as the hub of the Koch-backed political operation, according to an attendee. The amount is more than double the $407 million that 17 allied groups in the network raised during the 2012 campaign.
The figure comes close to the $1 billion that each of the two major parties’ presidential nominees are expected to spend in 2016, and it cements the network’s standing as one of the country’s most potent political forces. With its resources and capabilities — including a national field operation and cutting-edge technology — it is challenging the primacy of the official parties. In the 2012 elections, the Republican National Committee spent $404 million, while the Democratic National Committee shelled out $319 million.
The new $889 million goal reflects the anticipated budgets of all the allied groups that the network funds. Those resources will go into field operations, new data-driven technology and policy work, among other projects, along with likely media campaigns aimed at shaping the congressional and White House elections.
The group — which is supported by hundreds of wealthy donors on the right, along with the Kochs — is still debating whether it will spend some of that money in the GOP primaries. Such a move could have a major impact in winnowing the field of contenders, but could also undercut the network’s standing if it engaged in intraparty politics and was not successful.
The three-day conference was held at a luxury resort perched on a rocky hillside near Palm Springs, Calif., with stunning views of the palm-tree-speckled desert floor below. The event drew 450 attendees, a record number, as well as the largest number of first-time contributors to the network.
Saturday’s opening dinner, held on the resort’s wide lawn under strings of twinkling lights, celebrated a crop of new U.S. senators whose victories helped put the Senate back in GOP control. Their bids were lifted by the Freedom Partners network, which had pledged to spend close to $300 million in the run-up to the November elections.
Sens. Steve Daines (Mont.), Joni Ernst (Iowa), Tom Cotton (Ark.), Thom Tillis (N.C.), David Perdue (Ga.) and Cory Gardner (Colo.) were on hand to thank donors, according to people familiar with the event.
But much of the weekend was spent looking ahead to 2016.
Freedom Partners President Marc Short said in an interview that “2014 was nice, but there’s a long way to go,” noting that the group’s ultimate goal is to make free-market ideals central in American society. “Politics is a necessary means to that end,” he said, but not the only one.
Much of the conclave served as an information-gathering exercise for network officials, who are assessing whether financiers will coalesce around a single candidate in the GOP presidential contest. At this point, some contributors have said they have little interest in putting money into a bloody internal fight, and many others are not yet set on a candidate.
Few here suggested they would support 2012 nominee Mitt Romney, who is considering another run in 2016. Among the favorites are Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, former Florida governor Jeb Bush, Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.).
“It’s not as if there’s one perfect champion and five bad individuals,” said one person familiar with donors’ views, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share private conversations.
The Kochs’ moves are being carefully watched by operatives throughout the party, who are well aware of how the brothers could alter the trajectory of the race if they took sides in the primaries.
“It’s not like a Chicago political boss where Charles would say, ‘We’re all for this guy,’ ” said conservative activist Grover Norquist, who has attended past Koch donor seminars. “But if he said, ‘I really like this guy’ and did an op-ed, it would matter.”
The network’s influence was underlined by the number of prospective 2016 contenders who flocked to Rancho Mirage to mingle with the deep-pocketed crowd. Walker arrived Saturday from Iowa, after addressing conservative activists at a forum in Des Moines. That night, over an al fresco dinner of filet mignon, the Wisconsin governor thanked the Freedom Partners donors for their past support and touted his efforts to curb state spending.
Sunday night, Paul, Rubio and Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) were on hand to participate in a panel about the economy and foreign policy moderated by ABC’s Jonathan Karl.
The three senators aimed some of their comments at the business leaders in the audience, touting their support for cutting taxes and regulations, and dismissed a question about whether wealthy donors have too much influence on politics.
“There are a bunch of Democrats who have taken as their talking points that the Koch brothers are the nexus of all evil in the world,” said Cruz, calling that thinking “grotesque and offensive.”
“I don’t know a single person in this room who has ever been to my office . . . asking from government any special access,” Rubio added. “By and large what they want is to be left alone.”
The panel was available to news organizations via a live Web stream, part of a new posture of openness embraced by the usually private organization. For the first time, Freedom Partners shared details about the donor conclave, including excerpts of Charles Koch’s welcoming remarks.
Still, some critics scoffed at the idea that the group was being transparent. On Saturday, a handful of protesters stood at the base of the curving driveway that leads up to the resort, waving a large American flag and holding signs denouncing the Kochs.
“They claim they’re being more open,” said Tracy Turner, a 49-year-old retiree from Palm Springs, noting that the news media was barred from the event. “Clearly, that’s not the case. They’re scripting it very carefully.”
Started by Charles Koch in 2003 and originally hosted by Koch Industries, the twice-a-year donor seminars are now sponsored by Freedom Partners.
The network has evolved into a sophisticated political operation that mirrors those of the official parties. Along with its main political advocacy arm, Americans for Prosperity, the network finances groups such as Concerned Veterans for America, the Libre Initiative and Generation Opportunity. Last year, it added a super PAC to its arsenal, but most of the allied groups are nonprofits that do not disclose their donors.
Network officials used the conference to lay out ambitious goals to promote free-market principles in government, business and the media. There were also frank assessments of what they need to do to refine their tactics.
One area seen as a major improvement over 2012 was how the network uses data to improve its voter outreach. Another major 2014 investment — expanding a national field organization — was also viewed as promising, but officials believe it will take time to make it more effective.
In the coming year, allied groups in the network will put a renewed focus on the issue of “crony capitalism” and will pressure Democrats and Republicans alike on issues such as tax-code reform and the Export-Import Bank, according to people familiar with the plans.
Denver investor John Saeman, a veteran cable executive who has been a longtime supporter of the network, described the mood as “measured.”
“It’s very much of staying the course,” he said during a break between sessions. “This is a battle for hearts and minds.”
In his speech Saturday night, Charles Koch exhorted his fellow donors to deepen their commitment.
“It is up to us,” he said. “Making this vision a reality will require more than a financial commitment. It requires making it a central part of our lives.” | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A group of Republican lawmakers sent a letter to President Donald Trump on Friday urging him not to reverse former President Barack Obama’s opening to Cuba even as White House aides moved closer to completing a plan that could tighten rules on trade and travel to the island. With the Cuba policy review approaching its final stages, both sides of the issue have stepped up lobbying to sway Trump’s decision on how far to go in rolling back measures that Obama implemented after a 2015 breakthrough with America’s former Cold War foe. In the letter, seven of Trump’s fellow Republicans expressed “deep concern” that he is considering rescinding Obama’s policies and said that such a move would “incentivize Cuba to once again become dependent on countries like Russia and China.” The warning reflected growing unease on Capitol Hill over returning to a more contentious approach to communist-ruled Cuba, even within a Republican party that has traditionally hewed to a harder line against Havana. Senior officials at the National Security Council were meeting on Friday to craft recommendations that will be sent to the principals committee - Trump’s top foreign policy advisers - and then to the president, people familiar with the matter said. Though divisions remain within the administration, Trump could make an announcement within weeks, possibly as early as mid- to late June in a speech in Miami, U.S. officials have said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Trump’s changes are expected to stop short of breaking diplomatic relations restored two years ago after more than five decades of hostility, administration officials say. Among the options under consideration are banning U.S. companies from doing business with Cuban enterprises tied to the military and tightening rules on Americans traveling there, according to people familiar with the discussions. A White House official, asked about the latest meeting, said the Cuba review is still under way and “not final.” The U.S. airline and travel industries have made clear they do not want to see reinstatement of Cuba restrictions. But Trump has come under heavy pressure from Cuban-American lawmakers, including Senator Marco Rubio and Representative Mario Diaz-Balart, to roll back Obama’s rapprochement. “My hope is that when the administration is done with their review, they don’t let one or two voices overwhelm what is in the interest of the United States,” Representative Tom Emmer, a signatory to the letter, told Reuters. One of four pro-engagement Republicans who met with White House officials on Thursday, Emmer said they urged the administration not to go too far in rolling back Obama’s measures. Trump threatened shortly after his election in November to “terminate” Obama’s approach unless Cuba made concessions, something it is unlikely to do. Obama implemented his normalization measures through executive actions, and Trump has the power to undo much of it. | 0 |
On Tuesday, the New York State Assembly passed a bill that legalized mixed martial arts (MMA), but it was the debate leading up to the passage of the bill that got the most attention. State lawmakers compared the sport to slavery and gay porn, the claims were so outrageous that former UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman said he was embarrassed for them. New York is currently the only state that bans the popular MMA sport and this was the first time the State Assembly has ever brought it to a vote, despite the fact that the Senate has passed it seven years in a row. So when lawmakers finally passed the bill, it was a big deal, unfortunately, it was overshadowed by a whole lot of stupidity during the debate.Sadly one of the most mindblowing comments came from a Democrat: I thought I should learn a little bit about (MMA), said Assemblyman Daniel O Donnell (D-Manhattan), who is gay. Well, I should really like it. You have two nearly naked, hot men trying to dominate each other. That s gay porn with a different ending. I m going to assume that O Donnell, the brother of actress/comedian Rosie O Donnell, was trying to channel his sister and be funny with his dissenting opinion, but he failed miserably. He wasn t the only lawmaker to make a crazy comparison, Assemblyman Charles Barron said it was like slavery and police violence: You know how we feel about the chokehold in New York City. You can put him in a chokehold and the ref has to be determining whether he got choked enough or she got choked enough. This (sport) is not something we should legalize or regulate. That s taking it a little far. MMA fighters know exactly what their sport is about; Eric Garner, however, did not expect the NYPD to choke him to death when he sold loose cigarettes. Comparing a sport to systematic police abuse is outrageous and offensive.When asked about the lawmakers comparisons, Chris Weidman said: Some of the things they were saying were so ridiculous that I was actually happy and embarrassed for them for even bringing it up. It s things I ve heard people behind closed doors might be saying, but to hear them say it live and to the public, I actually thought it was pretty interesting and probably good for us. I just thought it was embarrassing on their part. I have to agree with him, the lawmakers sounded ridiculous. We expect Republicans to make outlandish claims when they are arguing against something, but when Democrats do it, it s even more embarrassing. We are smarter than that and frankly, they should both apologize for their crass remarks.Featured image via Steve Marcus/Getty Images | 0 |
It doesn t get any clearer than this that Iowa Rep. Steve King is a racist.During a story about King introducing Sarah s law, a program that allows parents to check if someone around their child has ever been convicted of sexual offenses against children, cameras busted the Republican openly displaying a Confederate flag on his office desk.Here s the video via YouTube. The flag can be seen at the 26 second mark.This pretty much confirms that King is a racist who fantasizes about secession. After all, he is a vicious critic of Black Lives Matter and has always hated President Obama, whom he directly blamed for the Dallas shootings in a post on Twitter.#DallasPoliceShooting has roots in first of anti-white/cop events illuminated by Obama Officer Crowley. There were others. Steve King (@SteveKingIA) July 8, 2016Furthermore, King tried to block the addition of Harriet Tubman, a former slave who escaped and became a prominent abolitionist who helped other slave gain their freedom via the Underground Railroad, to the $20 bill in defense of slave-holder Andrew Jackson, who is going to be moved to the back.King claimed that putting Tubman on the $20 bill is racist while he tried to portray his effort as unifying This is liberal activism on the part of the president that s trying to identify people by categories, and he s divided us on the lines of groups, King said. This is a divisive proposal on the part of the president, and mine s unifying. It says just don t change anything. King is also a fan of secession. When the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union last month, he cheered the vote on Twitter. Congratulations to UK, especially @Nigel_Farage & UKIP, for your noble & farsighted national decision to #BreExit. WesternCiv can be saved. Steve King (@SteveKingIA) June 24, 2016Texas conservatives also cheered the decision and have used it to push their own secession movement.Democratic candidate Kim Weaver, who is challenging King for his seat, told the De Moines Register, Like a lot of Iowans, I m disgusted by his gross insensitivity to the millions of Americans for whom that flag is a symbol of racism and division, and I join them in calling on Mr. King to remove it immediately. Even Iowa s GOP governor opposes King s display of the Confederate flag because Iowa was a Union state during the Civil War.Indeed, 76,242 Iowa men fought against the Confederacy. Iowans fought bravely with distinction at the Battle of Wilson Creek in Missouri and many are buried at Vicksburg National Cemetery. King s support of the Confederate flag is an insult to their memory and the memory of the 13,000 Iowans who died trying to defeat the Confederacy. It s also disgraceful to the Iowans who were killed by Confederate bushwhackers who repeatedly raided the southern part of the state during the war.Iowa heavily backed Abraham Lincoln and the Union, so Steve King s display of an enemy flag is totally offensive, especially since he is supposed to be a United States congressman.Featured Image: Screenshot | 1 |
WELLINGTON (Reuters) - The final opinion poll before New Zealand s election on Saturday showed the ruling National Party s lead over the opposition Labour Party had slipped to 8.5 points, meaning minor parties could well decide who forms the next government. The Newshub-Reid survey released on Thursday showed support for Prime Minister Bill English s National Party had edged down 1.5 points to 45.8 percent, but support for Labour also fell, dropping 0.5 points to 37.3 percent. The National Party has governed for the past nine years, and its re-election would hearten investors who favour continuity and like National s vow to keep the small trading economy open to foreign investment. Regardless of the polls, which have shown sharp divergences, the nationalist New Zealand First Party could well emerge as the kingmaker in the next parliament. Minor parties often have an outsize role in New Zealand s proportional representation system, in which a party, or combination of parties, needs 61 of Parliament s 120 members - usually about 48 percent of the vote - to form a government. The Newshub-Reid survey showed support for New Zealand First hitting 7.1 percent, as did support for the Green Party, which is a likely coalition partner for Labour. The tight race, with Labour and the Green Party virtually neck-and-neck with National, meant the government might not be known for weeks. Despite all of the volatility, despite all the twists and turns of the campaign, it has come back to that simple fact ... New Zealand First appears to be that crucial kingmaker, said Bryce Edwards, analyst at Wellington-based Critical Politics. Outspoken New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has said he will not confirm which bloc of parties he ll support until October 12 when the results become official. The election was so hotly-contested that the deciding votes might be those of overseas New Zealanders, whose ballots would not be released until Oct. 7. These votes, as well as those from New Zealanders who voted outside of their home area, accounted for around 12 percent of total ballots cast in the 2014 election, according to the Election Commission. Labour leader Jacinda Ardern said on Wednesday that citizens living in Australia, home to New Zealand s largest diaspora, were very important to the election. Most New Zealanders maintain a strong interest in the direction of the country, particularly when it comes to things like how we re grappling with international issues, trade issues, environmental issues - so please have your say, Ardern told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The New Zealand dollar - the word s 11th most traded currency in 2016 - briefly firmed to $0.7324 from $0.7312 after Thursday s opinion poll, but quickly gave up most of those gains and sank to $0.7305. | 0 |
When Jared Yates Sexton, a professor of creative writing at Georgia Southern University, decided to attend a Trump rally in North Carolina, he probably wasn t expecting a drunken free-for-all more appropriate to an out-of-control frat party than a presidential rally. Yet, that s what he saw, and he live-tweeted the entire event, giving the world a chilling look at what Trump supporters are really like when they think they re just among friends. Upon trying to get in, Sexton saw how security treated people:Trump event like a security state. Just watched a girl get denied for being too alternative. Jared Sexton Sexton (@JYSexton) June 14, 2016Sexton himself also got told something strange: Just got told I don t look right. Jared Sexton Sexton (@JYSexton) June 14, 2016But these two tweets just barely scratch the surface. After Trump took the stage, people shouting the word Bitch! was common whenever Hillary Clinton s name came up. Homophobic hate speech ran rampant as Trump spoke about the Orlando massacre. A protester cowered in fear after another was escorted out, with the crowd chanting Hurt him, hurt him, even as King Donald told security not to hurt him.Lots of people yelling bitch at Clinton s mention Jared Sexton Sexton (@JYSexton) June 14, 2016 Crowd member just shouted gays had it coming Jared Sexton Sexton (@JYSexton) June 14, 2016Trump says not to hurt protestor, several chant HURT HIM HURT HIM Jared Sexton Sexton (@JYSexton) June 14, 2016 There s a protestor next to me and he s scared to death Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) June 14, 2016If you thought Trump himself was scary, he s nothing compared to his fans. Sexton s full account of that night included horrors such as this: The gays had it coming [in Orlando]! a man shouted and gazed back at the guy who d called Hillary a bitch. They met eyes, shared a smile, a look of recognition.As if it were some kind of joke.As if 49 of his fellow Americans 49 living, breathing human beings hadn t just been mowed down. Elsewhere, a father was telling his son all about Bill Clinton s presidency: I walked behind a father explaining the shirt to his ten-year-old son by saying the former secretary of the state, the first female presidential nominee of a major political party, had let her husband have all kinds of oral sex in the White House.' Awhile back, Trump said that Hillary had enabled her husband s adultery while he was president, as if that somehow makes her both less of a woman, and unqualified to be president. Trump doesn t go after anyone s policy positions the way a presidential candidate should. He attacks his opponents personally, like the schoolyard bully he is, and his fans are doing the same.That a father thinks it s okay teach his 10-year old how to be the same childish bully as Trump is just sick.But the worst is yet to come. Trump rallies are full of drunken, brawling racists who say things like: You can t trust Latinos. Some maybe, but not most. Immigrants aren t people, honey. You know them crazy black girls, how they are. Sexton s Twitter feed is full of sarcastic humor, but what he live-tweeted from that rally in Greensboro, NC, was devoid of his sharp wit. And it s no wonder, because he also wrote this in his recount of the event (if it can even be called an event ): Sickened, I got in my car and watched in the rearview as a group of college boys tailgated out of their pickup That s when I realized what had been there all along. This campaign, whose success has long been attributed to the forgotten working and middle classes, the so-called Silent Majority, has been, and always will be, an unholy alliance between the Hateful and the Privileged, the former always on a never-ending search for new venues for their poison and the latter enjoying, for the first time since Reagan s 80s, an opportunity to get out and step on some necks in public. Any reasonable person would find themselves sickened at a Trump rally if this is normal, and given what s happened to protesters, members of the press, and others, this is normal. It s clear that the only thing Donald Trump is truly capable of is bringing out the worst of humanity, which isn t surprising considering he himself embodies the worst of humanity.Featured image by Gerardo Mora/Getty Images | 0 |
Here s the original post by the Washington Post:It s now illegal in Russia to share an image of Putin as a gay clown https://t.co/trihoOp6nt Washington Post (@washingtonpost) April 5, 2017Here are some of the hilarious responses:Huh. Is this illegal? pic.twitter.com/ZIK2xBHslt Jessica (@NoFascistsPls) April 5, 2017Like this? pic.twitter.com/YNa6CB61ML B3r$A (@ScamGoggles) April 6, 2017What about this pic.twitter.com/LlA6cEV6KT Jessica (@NoFascistsPls) April 5, 2017Really? Because I like this one. pic.twitter.com/ZiEVbUddqr Lisa Stewart (@holachola) April 6, 2017Or this? pic.twitter.com/29syZcNkbt Jessica (@NoFascistsPls) April 5, 2017Well, the demand for gay Putin clowns just went up. I m gonna capitalize on this meme. pic.twitter.com/iD2wST92q9 Tyler (@Dy5function) April 5, 2017Here ya go.Courtesy of https://t.co/tJWNKZbBEv pic.twitter.com/Bi0VGOKe4a Stranger Thingamabob (@MikeyMooseNC) April 5, 2017 | 0 |
Why NATO is put on war footing against Russia 07.11.2016 Jens Stoltenberg claimed that given growing tensions in relations with Russia, hundreds of thousands of the NATO military men would be brought to higher level of readiness. Before that he stated that there's no danger and constructive relations with Moscow should be built. Now, according to him, the NATO authorities intend to prepare significant ground forces, which would be capable of containing 'Russian aggression'. What for are these acts?Andrey Koshkin, Ph.D. in Political Science:'First of all, it should be noted that we've caught the US at double standards in politics, and policy of the NATO military political alliance is the same. They react to Washington's order, which says that they should build-up potential, as Russian aggression is to be shown constantly. And how can it be shown? In order to show Russia's aggression, its own residents and armed forces should be shaken up. How can they be shaken up? Just switched to a more high level of readiness. That is what they are doing. If the Armed Forces are switched to a more high level of readiness, common residents of the Western states will react immediately. Yes, the danger is real if the Armed Forces are put on a war footing, and these are funds after all. The funds should be taken from taxpayers, that is why a new wave of anti-Russian hysteria has been set off in the mass media. Pravda.Ru | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama’s nominee to lead the U.S. military in Africa on Tuesday backed the idea of gaining greater power to strike Islamic State, including in Libya, which he described as the group’s Plan B as it loses territory in Iraq and Syria. Marine Lieutenant General Thomas Waldhauser told his Senate confirmation hearing that the U.S. military was making preparations for possible military strikes in Libya against the militants. But Waldhauser noted limitations on the current commander’s ability to order strikes against the group in Libya, which require adhering to White House guidance. That differs from the rules of engagement in Iraq or Syria. Asked by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham whether it would be wise for Obama to give the commander of the Africa Command the authority to go after Islamic State targets in Africa “on your own,” Waldhauser said: “It would be wise.” “It would certainly contribute to what we’re trying to do inside Libya,” he responded. Islamic State established a presence in several parts of the country from 2014, and has been active between Benghazi and the militant group’s coastal stronghold of Sirte, about 380 km (240 miles) to the west. In recent weeks, however, the ultra-hardline group has retreated into the center of Sirte after forces aligned with Libya’s U.N.-backed unity government advanced from the western city of Misrata. One reason Islamic State established itself in Sirte, Waldhauser told the Senate Armed Services Committee, was “to be kind of a backup if Iraq and Syria fail,” he said. Waldhauser estimated that Islamic State faced between 3,000 and 4,000 opponents fighting the group around Sirte, drawn from the Mirsratan militia forces and the Petroleum Facilities Guard Central Branch. But he cautioned that alliances can shift among the Libyan militia, driven by everything from tribal ties and religious beliefs to material gain. “The unpredictable nature of paramilitary group patronage will most likely remain a significant obstacle to the GNA’s efforts to establish sovereignty,” he said in written testimony. For months, the United States has had a small number of U.S. forces rotating in and out of Libya, establishing contact with fighters inside the country. Waldhauser said they were acting in an advisory role to support the unity government, and said no more U.S. troops were needed in the country at this time. | 1 |
A 36-year-old U.S. man diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer in March of this year is now being forced to confront the likelihood of losing his job should he choose to use marijuana for the purpose of relieving symptoms caused by his cancer and cancer treatments.
John Doe is a married father of one. He spent at least ten years as a biologist and environmental protection specialist and planned large scale projects to minimize environmental impacts. He also directed the cleanup of solid waste sites and oil spills for several federal agencies. (We granted him anonymity because if he is suspected of using marijuana he will be fired.)
He told Shadowproof that he hoped to move to the private sector in the months leading up to the diagnosis to be closer to his wife’s family or his own family. “But the diagnosis changed that, since a stage IV cancer patient can’t get life insurance on the private market and the health insurance available to federal employees was a better deal” for him than what was available under the Affordable Care Act. “It’s gotten worse since then.”
After experiencing complications with the prescribed medicines for his cancer, the doctor recommended medical marijuana, “which is required to get a card in the state I had been living in and also in the state in which I live now.”
Since marijuana is listed under the Controlled Substances Act as a schedule 1 substance by the DEA, doctors cannot prescribe it. “Dronabinol/Marinol gets around that by being a synthetic analog— apparently it’s okay if you pay a pharmaceutical company for it, but not okay if you grow it yourself,” Doe said.
Doe was never offered a prescription for dronabinol. Instead, it was recommended he use medical marijuana should he need nausea relief and appetite stimulation, and he used it when he needed it to function, “which was typically for the several days following chemo so that I could stop the nausea. It’s constant, by the way, readers should know that it does not come in waves, and there is no relief.”
But Doe had to hide his medical marijuana use from everyone. “Federal employees are barred from using any illegal drug and can be fired even if the use is on their own time away from work.”
“All federal employees receive a memo each year from their agency solicitor or DOJ reminding them specifically that medical marijuana is not recognized as valid by the DEA, and since all marijuana (except dronabinol) is listed as schedule 1, it’s use is ‘inconsistent with federal employment’ and employees can be fired if they are caught using it or if they test positive during a drug test.”
Unfortunately for Doe, drug testing is likely to expand from law enforcement, firefighters, commercial drivers, and seasonal employees to his position at the agency. Any employee may be forced to submit to a test if there is “reasonable suspicion” that employee is using drugs. “I’m not sure the threat of a lawsuit for discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act would help me forestall a drug test. I’d like to point out as well that my use has been limited to edibles, and that I do not work under the influence. When I use, it is after work so that I can eat.”
Back in August 2015, Doe suffered bouts of constipation and diarrhea, symptoms he assumed were triggered by all the stress brought on after having his first child. While the constipation and diarrhea diminished, the issues did not entirely go away.
Doe mentioned these symptoms to his doctor in October, who noticed that Doe had also lost around five or six pounds. “He then asked how the baby was doing and said that I was probably just dealing with stress and asked me to track how I feel and report back to him if things didn’t improve in a week.”
Things did not improve, and he found himself having to use the bathroom more often than usual. After another doctor’s visit, he was asked to make some dietary changes and prescribed a laxative and stool softener with instructions to call back after a week or two if things didn’t improve.
In November, after Doe’s symptoms continued to worsen, he made an appointment for a colonoscopy. Unfortunately, the hospital was booked so he had to wait.
By mid-January, he used the bathroom nearly 10 times a day. “[The doctor] finally ordered a thorough set of blood and stool tests to look for a range of disorders, parasites, etc. Results that came back in mid-February were all in the middle of reference range for blood chemistry and negative for parasites. According to the doctor, I was healthy as a horse, and he gave me a large stack of literature on irritable bowel syndrome. It was at this point that the hospital finally found time to get me in for a colonoscopy.”
In March, Doe finally had a colonoscopy. “I fell asleep on the gurney fully expecting to wake up and hear that it was IBS.” After waking up in the recovery room, the doctor came in and told him that she had some bad news. They found and removed a polyp in his sigmoid colon, which was the good news. He was then shown a picture of an obstruction a few inches further into his sigmoid colon.
“There was a obstructing tumor so large that she couldn’t push the scope beyond that point. Preliminary diagnosis was colon cancer,” he shared. They had to do a CT scan immediately to see if the cancer spread, and he needed surgery within a week to install a colostomy bag to bypass the blockage.
“I remember thinking, ‘Well, if they’d been able to get me in for a routine colonoscopy back in November I might not be in this situation,” followed by “I guess this means I can eat onions and garlic again since it’s not IBS.”
Days after having a CT scan, Doe went in to work to fill out several forms, “mostly making sure my designations of beneficiaries were current and submitting an open-ended sick leave request.” While he was there, he received a call from the gastroenterologist. “My CT results were in, and they weren’t good. In addition to the tumor in the colon I also had numerous tumors in my liver and lungs. That was…hard to hear.”
The doctors put off the consultation for surgery to install the colostomy until Wednesday of that week, but he didn’t make it that far. “My digestive tract was not happy after a full week of nothing but clear liquid, and I had trouble passing anything. My wife and I went to the emergency room on Tuesday and after waiting several hours had surgery to install the colostomy. That went well. Then we met with the local oncologist.”
Doe was told they would focus on palliative care with drugs, and that surgery was not an option. “I give you about a fifty percent shot at living another two years.”
He sought second opinions and got two, one at the University of Wisconsin and another at the University of Iowa. “Those doctors were more encouraging. Despite a stage IV diagnosis and spread [of cancer] to more than one distant organ, they held out hope that if my cancer responded well to chemotherapy perhaps we could consider surgery given my age and otherwise great health.”
As of publication, Doe has done one course, or twelve rounds, of FOLFOX plus Avastin. FOLFOX is a chemotherapy regimen for colorectal cancer, and Avastin is a cancer medicine that is supposed to disrupt the growth of cancer cells.
“I also took and continue to take several supplements my doctors have suggested to me: curcumin, vitamin D, vitamin E, etc. The tumor marker CEA in my blood samples dropped precipitously each time I went in for the next round of chemo, and CT scans at various points during treatment documented shrinkage of the tumors in the liver and lungs.”
While comparing his most recent CT scan to the first scan, doctors have pointed out just how much the tumors had shrunk and noted that some of the tumors in the liver appeared to be mostly dead. “They also said that given my response to chemo, they’d like to give me a shot at surgery. To do that, they need to grow the unaffected lobe of my liver before surgery and then the surgery, assuming it happens, will be a great big invasive procedure to remove the tumor in my colon, some lymph nodes, and the still-affected part of my liver, and burn out the remaining tumor tissue in my lungs. I am looking forward to that, believe it or not.”
Despite undergoing a series of traumatic symptoms, medical treatments, and consultations, Doe continues to work full time, and on a number of occasions he has worked during chemotherapy sessions in the hospital.
At first, the only side effects he felt from the chemotherapy were fatigue and nausea. He told Shadowproof that each chemo session involves receiving an IV drug that helps minimize nausea, and that he was also prescribed prochlorperazine, which is to be taken every 8 hours and scopolamine patches to wear behind his ear to prevent motion sickness.
The prochlorperazine worsened his fatigue, and after a few days of struggling to stay awake on prochlorperazine, he asked if there was anything else they could prescribe. “They gave me ondansetron, which also was to be taken every 8 hours. One doctor mentioned dronabinol, AKA marinol, synthetic THC (and approved by the FDA for treating nausea), but said that would be a last resort if nothing else worked.”
“I wondered why, since I had been researching the hell out of my treatment options and a lot of patients strongly suggested that marijuana was by far the best thing to prevent nausea and stimulate appetite. The ondansetron worked to a degree. By six hours into a dose, I would feel nauseous, and my appetite wasn’t good for several days following treatments. This worsened over time, such that my nausea and suppressed appetite would last longer and longer after chemo sessions.”
“I still continued to work but there would be long stretches of feeling uncomfortable when my nausea wasn’t controlled.”
Should Doe lose his federal employment because he is taking marijuana to help him through cancer treatment, it will mean he also loses the life insurance policy he has through the government. If he loses that, he would be unable replace it, “as no insurance company will underwrite a new policy for a stage IV cancer patient.”
“Being fired would cost my family dearly in the event that I die sooner rather than later, and losing the health insurance virtually guarantees that I would die sooner rather than later.”
The cost of Doe’s chemotherapy runs between $10,000 and $20,000, depending on the hospital. “The insurance for families has quite a few copays and an annual $11,000 deductible for the family, $5,000 for the first family member to reach that number. I hit $5,000 pretty quickly after my diagnosis so while I still make copays for my family’s medical care I haven’t had to pay any for myself since May of 2016.”
“I will have to start paying the deductible again on January 1 until I hit whatever deductible the insurance company sets for next year, which I assume will be higher than it was this year. I pay something like $350 a month for this insurance and the government pays an additional $900+ as part of my compensation package.
Doe continued, “I haven’t seen how much the premiums in my state of residence will be going up for 2017, but I know the number of providers has dropped to one or two and those providers have limits on office visits, larger copays, and higher deductibles that I currently pay. Were I to be drug tested and fired, I would have to make do with one of those plans that carries larger costs and offers fewer benefits.”
Right now, Doe has friends writing letters to the White House, their Representatives, and their Senators asking for either executive action to modify the 1986 Reagan Executive Order regarding off-duty drug use and to recognize state laws regarding medical marijuana. They are also helping him push for congressional action to grant marijuana the same exemption from the Controlled Substances Act “enjoyed by the alcohol and tobacco lobbies.”
“I’d like to note that the White House responses so far have been tone deaf, and that while the responses have focused on a supposed lack of any therapeutic use of marijuana—despite the FDA approval for dronabinol, lots of state laws, and lots of very sick people saying it works—to avoid action. I’d like to know what therapeutic use alcohol and nicotine serve.”
The White House’s response to these letters is distressing. It shows little concern for those impacted by blanket drug testing and zero tolerance drug policies. It reads in part:
“This Administration opposes marijuana legalization, and our policy approach focuses on improving public health and safety through prevention, treatment, support for recovery, and innovative criminal justice strategies to break the cycle of drug use and crime. A considerable body of evidence shows that marijuana use, especially chronic use that begins at a young age, is associated with serious health and social problems. Studies also reveal that marijuana potency has tripled since 1990, raising serious public health concerns.
At the same time, we share public concerns about ensuring limited Federal enforcement resources are dedicated to pursuing our highest enforcement priorities, such as preventing the distribution of marijuana to minors, preventing the sale of marijuana by criminal enterprises and gangs, preventing violence and the use of firearms in the cultivation and distribution of marijuana, and preventing drugged driving and other adverse public health consequences. We will also closely monitor implementation of marijuana legalization in individual States and prevent the diversion of marijuana to States that have not legalized its use, sale, or distribution. Outside of its highest enforcement priorities, the Federal Government has traditionally relied on State and local agencies to address marijuana activity through enforcement of their own narcotics laws.”
Attorney Stefan Borst-Censullo, Counsel to Hoban Law Group, who specializes in cannabis legislation, explained that the federal government “defined the idea that employers have the right to terminate for off work drug use, and they’ve continued this tradition, regardless of state laws for medical marijuana.”
Borst-Censullo told Shadowproof that this applies to “everyone,” as there is no existing marijuana law in the states which offers worker protection to patients, “and most state courts that look at the issue side with federal supremacy.” When it comes to whether or not medical marijuana users should be hopeful that they will see any changes, Borst-Censullo says no.
“The Colorado Supreme Court ruled against a man with [multiple scoliosis] who was being blatantly discriminated against due to his ADA [Americans With Disabilities Act] status. But because marijuana is federally illegal, ADA doesn’t apply,” Borst-Censullo added.
Doe hoped more exposure will pressure the President and Congress “to step into the 21st century” because “that is apparently what it will take to allow people access to medicine they need without fear of punishment for simply trying to control nausea or pain.” This isn’t just for him, he said. “This is for anybody and everybody in my situation.” He added, “And there are many of us.”
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Here are some of the highlights of the Reuters interview with U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday. “There’s a chance that we could end up having a major, major, conflict with North Korea, absolutely.” QUESTION: Is that your biggest global worry at this point? “Yes, I would say that’s true, yes. ... North Korea would be certainly that.” ON GETTING SOUTH KOREA TO PAY FOR THAAD MISSILE DEFENSE SYSTEM “On the THAAD system, it’s about a billion dollars. I said, ‘Why are we paying? Why are we paying a billion dollars? We’re protecting. Why are we paying a billion dollars?’ So I informed South Korea it would be appropriate if they paid. Nobody’s going to do that. Why are we paying a billion dollars? It’s a billion dollar system. It’s phenomenal. It’s the most incredible equipment you’ve ever seen - shoots missiles right out of the sky. And it protects them and I want to protect them. We’re going to protect them. But they should pay for that, and they understand that.” ON WHETHER THE WAR AGAINST ISLAMIST EXTREMISM WILL EVER END “Yours is the toughest question. Because at what point does it end? But we can’t let them come over here. I have to say, there is an end. And it has to be humiliation. There is an end. Otherwise it’s really tough. But there is an end. We are really eradicating some very bad people. When you take a look at what’s going on with the cutting off of the heads. We haven’t seen that since Medieval times. Right?” ON CHINESE PRESIDENT XI’S EFFORTS TO REIN IN NORTH KOREA “He certainly doesn’t want to see turmoil and death. He doesn’t want to see it. He’s a good man. He’s a very good man and I got to know him very well ... We’ll see how it all works out. I know he would like to be able to do something. Perhaps it’s possible that he can’t. But I think he’d like to be able to do something.” “He’s 27 years old, his father dies, took over a regime, so say what you want but that’s not easy, especially at that age. You know you have plenty of generals in there and plenty of other people that would like to do what he’s doing. So I’ve said this before and I’ve, I’m just telling you, and I’m not giving him credit or not giving him credit. I’m just saying that’s a very hard thing to do.” “As to whether or not he’s rational, I have no opinion on it. I hope he’s rational.” “I get a call from Mexico yesterday, ‘We hear you’re going to terminate NAFTA.’ I said that’s right. They said, ‘Is there any way we can do something without you – without termination?’ I said, ‘What do you want to do?’ He said, ‘Well, we’d like to negotiate.’ I said we’ll think about it. Then I get a call, and they call me, I get a call from Justin Trudeau and he said, ‘We’d like to see if we can work something out,’ and I said that’s fine. Because I’ve always - I’ve been very consistent. It’s much less disruptive if we can make a fair trade deal than if we terminate.” “It’s unacceptable. It’s a horrible deal made by Hillary. It’s a horrible deal. And we’re going to renegotiate that deal, or terminate it.” QUESTION: When will you announce it? “Very soon. I’m announcing it now.” “By the way, with South Korea, just so you know. They’re ready for it. Mike Pence was representing me, he was just over there, he’s told them. And we have the five-year anniversary coming up very shortly. And we thought that would be a good time to start ... It’s a great deal for South Korea. It’s a terrible deal for us.” “Frankly, Saudi Arabia has not treated us fairly, because we are losing a tremendous amount of money in defending Saudi Arabia.” “Well, my problem is that I’ve established a very good personal relationship with (Chinese) President Xi. And I really feel that he is doing everything in his power to help us with a big situation, so I wouldn’t want to be causing difficulty right now for him ... So I would certainly want to speak to him first.” “If there’s closure, there’s closure. We’ll see what happens. If there’s a shutdown. It’s the Democrats’ fault. Not our fault. It’s the Democrats’ fault. Maybe they’d like to see a shutdown.” ON TRUMP’S PLAN TO GENERATE REVENUE TO OFFSET TAX CUTS “We will do trade deals that are going to make up for a tremendous amount of the deficit. We are going to be doing trade deals that are going to be much better trade deals ... “There will be other ways that we are going to raise revenues. But we are going to run the country properly, and we are going to be reimbursed when we do things. Why should we be paying for somebody else’s military?” ON MIDDLE EAST PEACE AND POSSIBLE TRIP TO ISRAEL, SAUDI ARABIA “It’s a possibility, we’re talking to both. It’s a possibility, but I want to see peace with Israel and the Palestinians. There is no reason there’s not peace between Israel and the Palestinians - none whatsoever. So we’re looking at that and we’re also looking at the potential of going to Saudi Arabia.” | 1 |
Wednesday 9 November 2016 by Lucas Wilde America gives Grand Piano to horse
America has given a grand piano to a horse and is expecting some quality tunes.
“I’m particularly looking forward to Beethoven’s Ninth,” beamed horse supporter and piano enthusiast, Jay Cooper.
“A horse has never been given a piano before because, frankly, the establishment wouldn’t allow it.
“Now, at last, change has come, and America will change for the better.
“There are a lot of doubters out there, and those doubters will soon be silenced by the graceful notes of Chopin, Mozart and maybe even Little Richard.”
Horse, Dobbin Williams, said, “I’m not really sure what’s expected of me here.
“I’m a horse. I am absolutely not qualified to play a piano.
“I mean… Look at these hooves and the way I am in general. I can’t even sit on the chair properly.
“Why on earth did anyone think this was a good idea?”
Cooper grinned, “We did it. We’ve made pianos great again.”
Democrat, Elizabeth King, said “We wanted to get a pianist of low-to-medium standard for the piano.
“She wouldn’t have thumped out anything exciting, but it would have been perfectly reasonable background music.
“But the people have spoken, and the people wanted a horse.
“God Bless America.” Get the best NewsThump stories in your mailbox every Friday, for FREE! There are currently witterings below - why not add your own? | 1 |
British Airways said its flights were gradually returning to normal on Tuesday after a computer problem disabled the airline’s kiosks for several hours at a number of international airports, causing significant delays. The extent of the computer problem, which first emerged late Monday in North America, was not immediately clear. The airline said the issue had been resolved by technicians early Tuesday morning in London. It advised passengers booked on Tuesday flights to check in online or via the airline’s mobile applications before reaching the airport, to minimize further delays. “The system is now working and customers are being checked in as normal in London and overseas, although it may take longer than usual,” the airline said in a statement. “We apologize to our customers for the delay and we appreciate their patience,” it added. “Our colleagues are doing everything possible to check in customers for their journeys. ” Chicago O’Hare International Airport, San Francisco International Airport and International Airport were among those affected. Travelers said that bottled water and snacks had been distributed at some airports as frustrated customers faced long lines to check in. That did not stop customers at United States airports from expressing their frustration on Twitter. The airline responded to each Twitter post with some version of its statement to the news media. The troubles at British Airways were not the only ones to cause travel headaches on Tuesday. Dozens of flights to and from London City Airport, near the heart of the British capital’s financial district, were canceled or diverted after a small number of activists from the group Black Lives Matter staged a blocking the airport’s only runway for several hours. The protest, which began before dawn, is the latest in a series of demonstrations across Britain by the group against social injustices like police brutality and reported increases in discrimination against migrants since the country’s vote to withdraw from the European Union. In a statement, the Metropolitan Police said that officers had arrested nine protesters who had erected a structure on the runway and locked themselves to it. It was not immediately clear how the group had managed to breach the perimeter of the airport, part of which borders the Thames. The police said that those arrested would be charged with aggravated trespassing, being unlawfully in a restricted zone and breaching the airport’s bylaws. London City Airport, which serves close to 12, 000 passengers a day, announced shortly after midday that the runway had reopened and that flights were resuming. It advised passengers to check with airlines on the status of flights. This has been a difficult summer for airlines, many of which have had to contend with technical problems that lead to delays, cancellations and thousands of angry customers. Last month, Delta Air Lines canceled more than 1, 500 flights after the failure of a piece of equipment in Atlanta led to the worldwide shutdown of its computer systems. A similar malfunction affected Southwest Airlines in July, forcing it to cancel about 2, 300 flights over four days. | 0 |
Главная » News » Google appoints Vice-President Google appoints Vice-President Tuesday, 1 November, 2016 - 09:30
Israel Meir Brand has become a new Vice President of Google Corporation. Sundar Pichai, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Google Inc reported this information. Brand was the first Google Israel employee and was appointed CEO of Google Israel.
At the same time Meir Brand will continue to rule Israel, the Middle East, Africa, Russia, Turkey, and Greece.
Against the background of the latest Wikileaks data about rigging custom queries of Google and Yahoo in favor of Clinton and other assistance provided by the corporation of the Democratic Party headquarters (also financing by Israeli billionaires), the appointment of Meir Brand means the strengthening Israel's role in the information space.
Despite the fact that Google has apologized for the changes on their maps (Palestine, for example, has not been marked as autonomy one, there was no Serbian monastery of Visoki Dečani), Tel Aviv is known to use actively possibilities of censorship in Internet. The recent changes are likely aimed to an active information attack including at strategically important areas, with which Meir Brand is familiar (Russia, Turkey, Middle Eastern countries). Related links | 1 |
BERLIN/PARIS (Reuters) - French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire will meet German officials in Berlin this week to discuss the future of the euro zone and assess his own prospects of becoming the next chairman of the Eurogroup forum of finance ministers. French and German officials confirmed Le Maire would be in Berlin on Wednesday, when he will meet acting Finance Minister Peter Altmaier, a close ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Le Maire is also due to see Christian Lindner, leader of the liberal Free Democrats (FDP), and Cem Oezdemir, co-leader of the Greens party. Both are in discussions with Merkel s conservatives on forming a coalition government. France s Emmanuel Macron has made euro zone reform a central goal of his five-year presidency. But any changes will require the support of Merkel and her new government, which is not expected to be in place before Christmas. Lindner has been critical of Macron s idea to create a budget for the euro zone. We want to follow up on the president s Sorbonne speech and exchange views on the future of the euro zone, a French finance ministry official said, referring to a speech by Macron in September when he laid out his vision for EU reform. While Le Maire s visit - his first to Berlin since the German election - is about strengthening contacts with likely members of the new government, officials indicated that it would also be an opportunity to sound out Berlin on the Eurogroup presidency, a powerful position that will be elected next month. Since it was created in 2005, the Eurogroup, which brings together the euro zone s 19 finance ministers, has had only two presidents: Luxembourg s Jean-Claude Juncker, who served from 2005 to 2013, and former Dutch finance minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who is due to step down in January. The position involves chairing monthly meetings and driving policy around economic and monetary union, including ensuring that all member states stick to strict targets on deficits and debt. The post has been dubbed Mr Euro . Le Maire, 48, is regarded as sharp, ambitious and more than capable of leading the group. But some euro zone officials are wary about the presidency ending up in the hands of either Germany or France, the two largest economies in the single currency bloc and already dominant forces in policymaking. A further complication for Le Maire is France s poor record of meeting its own deficit targets over the past decade. German officials are not ruling out Le Maire, but they have also expressed a preference for giving the post to a smaller country. Last week, one official in Berlin mentioned two possible alternatives: Pierre Gramegna of Luxembourg and Peter Kazimir of Slovakia. The official also floated the idea of extending Dijsselbloem, seen as a close ally of Berlin, even though he is not part of the new Dutch government. It is still quite unclear who will come forward, the German official said when asked about the presidency. At this stage there does not seem to be one candidate everyone is rallying behind. There is no natural candidate. The Eurogroup president will be chosen on Dec. 4, an EU official said last week, with the formal call for candidates opening in mid-November. It is not a done thing, the German official said of Le Maire s candidacy. He will only apply if he gets the impression that he is the one. The talks in Berlin on Wednesday could be decisive in determining whether he does throw his hat into the ring. If Le Maire were to get the job, it could have repercussions for other top euro zone jobs. Mario Draghi will end his term as president of the European Central Bank on Oct. 31, 2019, and Germany s Jens Weidmann is already being mentioned as a potential successor. Euro zone watchers say that if the French secure the presidency of the Eurogroup, it may be harder for them to argue against a German candidate taking over the ECB. Still, as one senior French official told Reuters on condition of anonymity last month, Weidmann at the helm of the ECB would be a problem for a lot of countries, not just for France . | 0 |
Hillary s been coughing to the point of almost passing out, spewing strange objects into her glass of water, flinging metal pieces from her pant legs, and convulsing as secret service agents lift her into her vehicle. So today, her doctor clarified what s been causing her Parkinson s disease like symptoms. Her doctor claims she has pneumonia, and that she s had it since last Friday. Do people who have pneumonia lie about it to reporters and blame their bizarre coughing fits on allergies? Do they convulse? Do they visit their daughter and her newborn baby unannounced after being lifted into their car by secret service? Secretary Clinton has been experiencing a cough related to allergies, Dr. Lisa R. Bardack said in the statement. On Friday, during follow up evaluation of her prolonged cough, she was diagnosed with pneumonia. She was put on antibiotics, and advised to rest and modify her schedule. While at this morning s event, she became overheated and dehydrated. I have just examined her and she is now re-hydrated and recovering nicely. Walking pneumonia can be contagious and between the ceremony today and the Barbra Streisand event on Friday night, she was among hundreds of people.Today, including Chuck Schemer and Bill De Blasio. WZEither she s lying gasp! or she s incredibly selfish or maybe she s just both?The touchy, feely infected with pneumonia Hillary can be seen here at the 9-11 memorial service, clearly taking every precaution to not infect everyone around her (that is, if she indeed does have pneumonia and not Parkinson s disease:She also staged a hug with a little girl outside Chelsea s apartment following her convulsions and falling down episode hours earlier: | 1 |
Comments
Democrats are better for the economy. This statement is not an opinion, but a fact. According to economist Steven Stoft, who created a series of graphs charting job creation under each party over the last 72 years (during which time Democrats and Republicans have held control for 36 years each), Democrats have created 58 million jobs while Republicans can only claim 26 million .
For roughly the last century, electing a Democrat has been the better option for the economy, with Dems creating more than double the jobs than that of Republicans, and faster.
Even when taking the percent change of number of jobs held, or scaling population (to avoid counting an increased population, thus falsely indicating an increase in jobs), Democrats still prove more successful than Republicans in job creation, and by a wide margin.
Another way of studying job creation is to take unemployment into account. When a Democrat is in the White House, logically unemployment decreases as well. By this rational, of course, when a GOP takes the Oval Office unemployment rises (and has risen under this party) since 1945.
Indeed, this extends to state and federal levels—the top 20 years of national GDP growth have all been under a Democrat. This is not only true for GDP, but for all economic growth in general—extending to the stock market, income growth and debt as a percentage of GDP.
As if you needed more proof that the blue party is better for the economy, simply turn to the numbers over the last 70 years. When it comes time for Election Day, it’s a matter of fact that with every Democratic ballot cast, it’s almost guaranteed the country will be in a better economic position than if a Republican is sworn in. | 0 |
If Rubio would have dropped out a month ago, we might have a very different outcome today Marco Rubio s loss is Ted Cruz s gain, a new poll shows.The Texas senator will benefit most from Rubio s exit from the presidential race, according to new Morning Consult polling.Among 412 Rubio supporters polled, 47 percent support Cruz as a second choice.Twenty-seven percent of respondents said they would back Ohio Gov. John Kasich if Rubio dropped out and only 13 percent of Rubio backers said they d support front-runner Donald Trump.Nine percent said they d vote for someone else and 5 percent don t know.Morning Consult interviewed 8,732 registered voters from March 11 to 15, including 3,372 Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. Via: NY Post | 1 |
The City of Biloxi, Mississippi tweeted out a notice to all its residences Friday afternoon saying that non-emergency offices will be closed this coming Monday. Monday is when the country is officially observing Martin Luther King, Jr. s birthday, so that makes sense. But their notice didn t say MLK Day, Martin Luther King Day, Martin Luther King, Jr. s birthday, or anything like that. No, they tweeted out the following:Image via TwitterYes, seriously, they re calling MLK Day Great Americans Day. So Twitter is busy blowing them to smithereens for it, as well they should:@CityofBiloxi (Even the state calendar of holidays doesn t say it. Maybe you got mixed up with Six Flags Great America? Good coasters there) pic.twitter.com/p1NoR0uyCC Cabel Sasser (@cabel) January 14, 2017@CityofBiloxi delete your account Luke Beard (@LukesBeard) January 14, 2017.@CityofBiloxi Because if you accidentally say MLKs name 3x, he ll appear & force you, against your will, to be a decent human being. Allison Robicelli (@robicellis) January 14, 2017@CityofBiloxi you are a bunch of fucking racists. J. Robert Lennon (@jrobertlennon) January 14, 2017@CityofBiloxi pic.twitter.com/GTfly6QTLH BernadetteGiacomazzo (@berngiacomazzo) January 14, 2017You know, I guess there is a certain degree of repulsiveness I have to suck up right now, but not from fucking ~Biloxi~ SaraKateW (@SaraKateW) January 13, 2017@CityofBiloxi There is no such day. There is Martin Luther King Jr Day. Tom Coates (@tomcoates) January 14, 2017@CityofBiloxi @ironghazi @D2_Derpinator @fakemikemulloy @trillballins @ThatBoysGood please virally embarrass this city. Its MLK Day dodger (@LADodgerReb) January 13, 2017@chelliehylton @CityofBiloxi In Tennessee we like to say at least we re not Mississippi. Alicia McKinny (@acmckinny) January 14, 2017@RWFreeman @CityofBiloxi stupid autocorrect, right?! JBS (@JBSeligman) January 14, 2017@CityofBiloxi pic.twitter.com/8I8p2snoA0 Matt Stehman (@MattStehman) January 14, 2017.@CityofBiloxi I m terrified to learn what you call Black History month Roland Scahill (@rolandscahill) January 14, 2017One would think that Biloxi would take an opportunity to say something like, Sorry, we screwed that up, we apologize for being a bunch of racists here, but they didn t. Noooo they said this instead:Image via TwitterThe funny thing is that the state s website doesn t say Great Americans Day under their list of state holidays, and a quick search on Google reveals a whole ton of nothing. There are Great Americans Days everywhere, but they re celebrated all year long. So who renamed MLK Day if it wasn t Biloxi?There might be some interesting goings-on in Biloxi next Tuesday.Featured image by Chris Graythen via Getty Images | 0 |
TUNIS (Reuters) - Month-long U.N.-backed talks aimed at bridging differences between rival Libyan factions ended on Saturday with no discernable progress towards stabilizing the country and paving the way for elections. A month ago U.N. envoy Ghassan Salame, the latest in a series of Libya envoys since a 2011 NATO-backed uprising ended Muammar Gaddafi s 42-year rule, announced a one-year action plan for a transition toward presidential and parliamentary elections. Since then the U.N. has hosted in Tunis delegations from rival parliaments from eastern Libya and Tripoli, which are meant to draw up amendments to a previous U.N.-mediated plan signed in December 2015. But at the end of a second round of talks Salame said only that discussions would continue, without giving a new date. There are some area of consensus ... but there are parts which need discussions with the political leaderships inside Libya, Salame told reporters, without giving details. Delegates will return to Libya on Sunday, the U.N. mission said in a statement. Salame will go to Tripoli next week to discuss how to move the talks forward, a U.N. source added. The North African country has been in turmoil since Gaddafi s downfall gave space to Islamist militants and smuggling networks that have sent hundreds of thousands of migrants to Europe. Political and military fractures have left the country mired in conflict and the OPEC member s economy in freefall. Rival parliaments and governments have vied for power. The U.N. tried a similar approach in 2015 of hosting Libyans in luxury hotels abroad but the deal never won support from the power-brokers and factions aligned with military commander Khalifa Haftar that control eastern Libya. Haftar is just one of many players in Libya controlled by armed groups divided among political, religious, regional and business lines. A U.N. source said a major obstacle at the Tunis talks had been how to integrate Haftar, who is opposed by many in western Libya, in any deal and whether he would control a future national army. Western states have tried to work with the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli, but it has been hamstrung by internal splits and been unable to halt a slide in living standards or tame the power of armed groups. Under the new U.N. plan, once amendments have been agreed a national conference is meant to approve the members of a transitional government that would run the country until elections. | 1 |
Bias bashers Russia Has a Dead Nuclear Submarine (Armed With Nuclear Weapons) Sitting at the Bottom of the Ocean
A fascinating vessel and a heroic captain both met tragic ends Originally appeared at The National Interest
In the mid-1980s, the Soviet Union constructed a super submarine unlike any other. Fast and capable of astounding depths for a combat submersible, the submarine Komsomolets was introduced in 1984, heralded as a new direction for the Soviet Navy.
Five years later, Komsomolets and its nuclear weapons were on the bottom of the ocean, two-thirds of its crew killed by what was considered yet another example of Soviet incompetence.
The history of the Komsomolets goes as far back as 1966. A team at the Rubin Design Bureau under N. A. Klimov and head designer Y. N. Kormilitsin was instructed to begin research into a Project 685, a deep-diving submarine. The research effort dragged on for eight years, likely due to a lack of a suitable metal that could withstand the immense pressures of the deep. In 1974, however, the double-hulled design was completed, with a titanium alloy chosen for the inner hull.
Project 685, also known as K-278, was to be a prototype boat to test future deep-diving Soviet submarines. The Sevmash shipyard began construction on April 22, 1978 and the ship was officially completed on May 30, 1983. The difficulty in machining titanium contributed to the unusually long construction period.
K-278 was 360 feet long and forty feet wide, with the inner hull approximately twenty-four feet wide. It had a submerged displacement of 6,500 tons, and the use of titanium instead of steel made it notably lighter. It had a unique double hull, with the inner hull made of titanium, that gave it its deep-diving capability. The inner hull was further divided into seven compartments, two of which were reinforced to create a safe zone for the crew, and an escape capsule was built into the sail to allow the crew to abandon ship while submerged at depths of up to 1,500 meters.
The submarine was powered by one 190-megawatt OK-650B-3 nuclear pressurized water reactor, driving two forty-five-thousand-shipboard-horsepower steam-turbine engines. This propelled it to a submerged speed of thirty knots, and a surface speed of fourteen knots.
The sub had the MGK-500 “Skat” (NATO code name: Shark Gill) low-frequency passive/active search and attack spherical bow array sonar system, the same sonar used in today’s Yasen-class attack submarines, which fed into the Omnibus-685 Combat Information Control System. Armament consisted of six 533-millimeter standard diameter torpedo tubes, including twenty-two Type 53 torpedoes and Shkval supercavitating antisubmarine torpedoes.
The submarine joined the Red Banner Northern Fleet in January 1984 and began a series of deep diving experiments. Under Captain First Rank Yuri Zelensky the submarine set a record depth of 3,346 feet—an astounding accomplishment considering its American equivalent, the USS Los Angeles class, had an absolute maximum depth of 1,475 feet. Crush depth was estimated at approximately 4,500 feet. The submarine had a special surfacing system, “Iridium,” which used gas generators to blow the ballast tanks.
The Soviet Navy considered K-278 invulnerable at depths greater than one thousand meters; at such depths it was difficult to detect and enemy torpedoes, particularly the American Mark 48, which had a maximum depth of eight hundred meters. Although the submarine was originally to be a test ship, it was eventually made into a fully operational combat-ready ship in 1988. It was given the name Komsomolets, meaning “member of the Young Communist League.”
On April 7, 1989, while operating a depth of 1266 feet, Komsomolets ran into trouble in the middle of the Norwegian Sea. According to Norman Polmar and Kenneth Moore , it was the submarine’s second crew , newly trained in operating the ship. Furthermore, its origins as a test ship meant it lacked a damage-control party.
A fire broke out in the seventh aft chamber, and the flames burned out an air supply valve, which fed pressurized air into the fire. Fire suppression measures failed. The reactor was scrammed and the ballast tanks were blown to surface the submarine. The fire continued to spread, and the crew fought the fire for six hours before the order to abandon ship was given. According to Polmar and Moore, the fire was so intense that crewmen on deck watched as the rubber anechoic coating tiles coating the outer hull slid off due to the extreme heat.
The ship’s commanding officer, Captain First Rank Evgeny Vanin, along with four others, went back into the ship to find crewmembers who had not heard the abandon ship order. Vanin and his rescue party were unable to venture farther—the submarine was tilting eighty degrees headfirst—and entered the rescue chamber. The chamber failed to dislodge at first, but eventually broke free of the mortally wounded sub. Once on the surface, the abrupt pressure change caused the top hatch to blow off, throwing two crewmembers out of the chamber. The chamber, as well as the captain and the rest of the rescue party, sank under the waves.
Only four men had been killed in the incident so far, but after the submarine sank many men succumbed to the thirty-six-degree (Fahrenheit) water temperatures. After an hour the fishing boats Alexi Khlobystov and Oma arrived and rescued thirty men, some of whom later succumbed to their injuries. Of the original sixty-nine men on board the submarine when disaster struck, forty-two died, including Captain First Rank Vanin.
Komsomolets sank in 5,250 feet of water, complete with its nuclear reactor and two nuclear-armed Shkval torpedoes. Between 1989 and 1998 seven expeditions were carried out to secure the reactor against radioactive release and seal the torpedo tubes. Russian sources allege that during these visits, evidence of “unauthorized visits to the sunken submarine by foreign agents” were discovered. | 1 |
CHICAGO (Reuters) - A sexual abuse victim will continue to try to collect $1.8 million from former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, the victim’s attorney said on Tuesday, after an Illinois judge denied Hastert’s motion to dismiss a breach-of-contract lawsuit. The plaintiff, identified in court documents as James Doe, claims that Hastert agreed to pay him $3.5 million as compensation for decades of pain and suffering caused by Hastert’s sexual abuse. Hastert, 74, the longest-serving Republican U.S. House speaker in history, pleaded guilty last year to the crime of structuring, which involves withdrawing a large sum of money in small increments to avoid detection. Hastert has not been charged with or convicted of sex abuse due to the statute of limitations, but at his sentencing hearing in April, he admitted to sexual abuse of boys when he was a high school teacher and coach in his hometown of Yorkville, around 50 miles (80 km) southwest of Chicago. Hastert was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison, followed by two years of probation and sex-offender treatment. He is serving his sentence in the Federal Medical Center in Rochester, Minnesota. Doe filed the lawsuit in Kendall County Circuit Court in northeastern Illinois in April, claiming Hastert owes him the unpaid portion of a $3.5 million deal they verbally agreed to in 2008. “There is no public policy against an abuser agreeing to compensate his victim and the victim seeking to enforce that commitment to compensate him,” Kristi Browne, Doe’s attorney, said in a statement on Tuesday. “We will proceed now to prove our claim by seeking documents from Mr. Hastert and others and taking his deposition.” Judge Robert Pilmer rejected Hastert’s motion to have the case dismissed on Monday and the decision was disclosed on Tuesday, according to court documents. The plaintiff had established a basis for a “claim for contract,” Pilmer wrote in his order. Hastert’s attorney did not immediately respond to request for comment. Hastert’s attorney sought dismissal because the contract was not in writing, saying it would be void because Doe broke confidentiality by speaking about it, according to court documents Doe said he was 14 when he was molested by Hastert, a trusted family friend, high school teacher and “beloved coach” of the state champion wrestling team in the town of Yorkville, Illinois, according to court documents. The next hearing in the contract case is scheduled for Jan. 18. | 1 |
The Army Corps of Engineers has denied an easement for the Dakota Access Pipeline, a major oil pipeline that had been rerouted to go through a Sioux nation reservation, and under the Missouri River. Protesters and police have been clashing repeatedly at Standing Rock in North Dakota over the possibility that the pipeline will contaminate water supplies for the Standing Rock Sioux.The Daily Beast is reporting that the Army Corps of Engineers denied the easement pending an environmental impact study. NBC 4 Washington has just released a statement from Sioux chairman David Archambault II that says: I heard the army Corp [sic] of engineers will not grant the easement and they will reroute. NBC 4 reports that Archambault also said: I am thankful there were some leaders in the feral [sic] government that realized something was not right even though its [sic] legal. For the first time in hisopry [sic] native American, they heard our voices. This is something that will go down in history and is a blessing for all indigenous people. Protesters have been gathering at Standing Rock for months to support the Sioux in their fight against the pipeline, and within the last few days, military veterans began heading out in support of the protests and to form a shield around the camp. Methods of trying to get the protesters to leave, including blasting them with freezing water in freezing temperatures and shooting them with rubber bullets, proved fruitless as the protesters refused to let their resolve waver.The reports of the victory over DAPL construction first began trickling in over Twitter via NBC News correspondents.Breaking: Army Corps of Engineers has told Standing Rock Sioux Chairman that the current route for the pipeline will be denied #nadpl Ayman Mohyeldin (@AymanM) December 4, 2016BREAKING: NBC News reports Army Corps denies DakotaAccessPipeline Permit near #StandingRock Sioux, camp cheers over #noDAPL Brian Thompson (@brian4NY) December 4, 2016The camp is celebrating their victory, as well they should. This should never have happened to begin with. Watch a video of this developing story below, via MSNBC:Featured image via screen capture from embedded video | 1 |
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan s Defense Ministry on Sunday said it was searching for three crew members of a Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF) helicopter in the Sea of Japan after contact was lost with the chopper. One crew member had been rescued uninjured. The ministry said the SH-60J anti-submarine warfare helicopter lost contact around 90 km (56 miles) off the coast of Aomori Prefecture late on Saturday. It said the flight data recorder had been located, but did not say what had actually happened to the helicopter, whether it crashed or ditched into the sea. The MSDF has launched an investigation into the incident. Earlier this month, four Japanese crew members were injured after their CH-101 chopper crashed on land during a training exercise at Iwakuni Air Base in Yamaguchi Prefecture in western Japan. | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - White House special counsel Ty Cobb predicts the cloud of an investigation into Russian meddling in the U.S. election will soon be lifted from President Donald Trump and says he would be “embarrassed” if it still hangs over the president in 2018. Cobb told Reuters this week that he talks to Trump on an almost daily basis and has been in contact with the team of Robert Mueller, the special counsel leading the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Mueller is investigating possible collusion between Trump’s campaign team and Russia, as well as possible money laundering by at least one former aide. But Cobb, who resigned from law firm Hogan Lovells to take the White House job on July 31, said in interviews on Tuesday and Wednesday he believed Mueller’s probe was “narrow” and that by the end of the year Trump should no longer be threatened by it. “I’d be embarrassed if this is still haunting the White House by Thanksgiving and worse if it’s still haunting him by year end,” Cobb told Reuters, adding: “I think the relevant areas of inquiry by the special counsel are narrow.” He declined to provide specifics backing his projected timeline, which suggests a speedier end to Mueller’s probe than several outside experts believe is likely. “The White House would be lucky if sometime in the spring of 2018 this started to wrap up, but even that I think is pretty optimistic,” said Andy Wright, former associate counsel in former President Barack Obama’s White House. “It’s a very complicated investigation.” Wright said Mueller’s team would have to track down many leads in the United States and overseas, and gather evidence from email accounts, intelligence reports and other sources. Russia’s government has denied interfering in the election and the president has denied collusion took place. Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller, declined to comment on any timeline for the probe, the scope of the investigation or any interactions with the White House. Like all senior White House staff, Cobb, 66, reports to retired general John Kelly, Trump’s chief of staff. As a White House lawyer, he is in a different position than the president’s outside lawyers John Dowd and Jay Sekulow. Cobb would not be able to assert attorney-client privilege to protect his conversations with Trump from a grand jury subpoena. Trump has said he believes any investigations of his and his family’s finances would be beyond the scope of Mueller’s probe. Cobb said he believed Mueller’s 16-lawyer team was “appropriately focused” and understood “the urgency to the country and to the presidency” of finishing the probe quickly. “We have one objective, which is to bring this to a conclusion as quickly as possible,” Cobb said. | 0 |
FBI director James Comey wanted to go public with information about Russia s interference in the 2016 election as early as last summer but was reportedly barred from doing so by the Obama administration.According to Newsweek sources, Comey presented a draft op-ed to top administration officials during a White House meeting in June or July. He had a draft of it or an outline, the source said. He held up a piece of paper in a meeting and said, I want to go forward, what do people think of this? Former Secretary of State John Kerry, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch and ex national security adviser Susan Rice were among those in the meeting.Comey s idea was rejected because White House officials thought the message would have more impact coming from multiple agencies and not just him. An op-ed doesn t have the same stature, it comes from one person, the source said.A second source told Newsweek the op-ed, which Comey would have likely sought to publish in the New York Times, contained the same information as the intelligence report made public on January 6 that said Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to influence the presidential election.Comey s op-ed was rejected around the same time he publicly revealed details about the investigation in Hillary Clinton s emails. The FBI director revealed before the House Intelligence Committee last week that the agency is investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election.He told the Intelligence Committee the Russians were very noisy and unusually loud in their hacking of US Democratic party computers. It was almost as if they didn t care if we found out, he added.Watch FBI Director Jame Comey confirm his investigation into alleged Russian interference in our elections: | 0 |
An alarming 66 per cent of Germans are afraid they will become the victim of a terrorist attack, with 10 per cent perceiving an “acute threat” to their safety. [The fear is even more widespread among women, the study published by German legal expenses insurance group ROLAND found. Of the female respondents, 74 per cent said they sometimes feel unsafe in crowded places, and nine per cent felt permanently threatened and scared. The authors state: “A large part of the population doesn’t feel safe anymore when visiting crowded places. The fear of becoming the victim of a terrorist attack with a high number of casualties is considerable. “A total of 45 per cent of respondents feel uneasy when visiting crowded locations like stations, festivals or even in the downtowns. “Three percent of the population feel permanently unsafe when visiting a public place along with many other people. ” The poll, of 1, 458 citizens over was conducted in October, before the Islamic State truck attack on the Berlin Christmas market in which Tunisia migrant murdered 12 people. The truck rampage was Germany’s worst terror atrocity since the 1980s, but followed 21 months of Islamist suicide bombings, shootings, and axe attacks. The terrorist killers responsible have included numerous “refugees” from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Algeria, as well as several German citizens of Turkish descent indoctrinated in radical Islam. Around seven of the plots and attacks are thought to have been linked to Islamic State. Germany appears to have become a target of Islamist aggression since the beginning of the migrant crisis in the summer of 2015, with some blaming Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open borders mass migration policy. Several serious plots have been foiled by security forces. In February last year, three Algerians said to have “lived in refugee shelters” were arrested for plotting to attack Berlin. The men had links to Islamic State, and the Berlin prosecutor’s office said they were aware of a “concrete” plan to target the German capital. | 0 |
Region: Southeast Asia Two years remain until the parliamentary elections in Cambodia. This is a really rather short period considering that the position of the current political regime of the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) remains in doubt. Despite the Party’s success at the municipal elections in 2015, there is no confidence that it may win and retain power at the parliamentary elections. The CPP is overloaded with a host of problems. Primarily, everyone is talking about corruption in the party, its nepotism, detachment from the people, who analysts state have long tired of seeing one and the same governing figures at the top of Cambodia’s political hierarchy. There is even the feeling that the leadership of the Party won’t plan to renew its policy and introduce new leaders even if it recognizes its problems. In January 2015, at an emergency session of the CPP, it was noted that “the corruption, nepotism, abuse of powers, violation of the laws spread among the Party’s members had undermined the confidence of the people and raised doubts about its right to rule the country.” The introduction of reforms inside the Party and society was named as a life-and-death issue for the CPP’s future at the session. However, almost two years have passed since the session and the Party has not even started to solve its acute problems. There are no new young and attractive leaders in its leadership, yet the provincial level has rather competent and authoritative governors of provinces – CPP members that might change the image of the ruling party if they became members of its leadership. Despite the fact that the number of members of the Central Committee has doubled, it is still dominated by the same veterans of the People’s Revolutionary Party who together with Hun Sen and supported by Vietnam and the Soviet Union built the People’s Republic of Kampuchea (1979-1991). Over this period, they went from being “comrade” to “Mr” and became even more detached from real life. The style of the political leadership was supposed to be corrected, and the session would promote steps aimed at a symbolic detachment from the personal leadership of Hun Sen. These expectations were not met. Soon after the session, he took up the position of CPP Chairman and consolidated both administrative and party powers into his own hands. The relations of the authorities and the opposition have been developing in a complicated and ambiguous way. At first, the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) headed by openly pro-Western and anti-Vietnam policy maker Sam Rainsy, which obtained only 12 seats fewer than the ruling party at the elections in 2013, boycotted the National Parliament in protest against the alleged falsification of the figures and violations that prevented their victory. Then, pro-Western nationalists agreed with Hun Sen to return to the Parliament and started active work aimed at spreading their influence in the rural areas by opening its branches in the traditional CPP territories and carrying out protests in their interest. This activity led by the opposition clearly frightened the ruling regime and Sam Rainsy emigrated while the other leader Kim Socha and his supporters were brought to justice for the organization of illegal anti-governmental protests. At the same time, Cambodia’s leader initiated propaganda attacks on the opposition leaders, organised protests demanding the resignation of its representatives from public offices. A number of opposition members were even beaten, which was followed by the initiation of criminal cases against them. The situation became so serious that the Deputies of the European Parliament threatened the authorities of Cambodia with suspending the provision of economic assistance. This is a serious warning for Hun Sen, as the European Union is one of the leading donors to Cambodia’s economy. As for the tactics of the opposition, it is now refraining from mass protest campaigns in order not to give the authorities reason to expand repressions. At the same time, using non-commercial organisations related to it and gaining Western subsidies, the opposition is generating the conviction in society that the ruling regime is against the people, and its leaders should be judged and their property should be confiscated. It also proposes a social and economic program that presupposes an increase in the minimum wage and retirement benefits, and a reduction in fuel and electricity prices. Though the program is purely populist and unreal, it is attracting people who have started to perceive the CNRP as a political force able to change the situation in the country. While assessing the situation in Cambodia and its prospects, it becomes clear that the People’s Party has no clear pre-election strategy and it is not mobilizing party members for successful elections. The elaboration and presentation of a pre-election strategy might influence those who have doubts about their preferences and those who have not decided how to vote in 2018. In September, I had a chance to talk with the delegation from Cambodia at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok. I was interested in the mood in the People’s Party in the run-up to the elections. One of the high-ranking members of the delegation answered, “We are very scared”, which just confirmed that our conclusions were correct. Dmitry Mosyakov, Professor, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Director of the Centre for Southeast Asia, Australia and Oceania and the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, exclusively for the online magazine “ New Eastern Outlook. “
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PALONG KHALI, Bangladesh (Reuters) - Mohammad Ayas, a 12-year-old Rohingya refugee in the sprawling Palong Khali camp, is busy hawking piazu, a fried mixture of onions, lentils and spices. The 150 portions of piazu, made by his mother from the aid package the family received after fleeing violence in Myanmar, sell for 1 taka each, or a little more than 1 U.S. cent. I started my trading here with the relief I got, Mohammad told Reuters. I did not buy anything. I got this relief package five days ago and my mum made this piazu this morning. Myanmar s Rohingya Muslims have endured killings, arson and rape by Myanmar troops and ethnic Rakhine Buddhist vigilantes since Aug. 25, in response to Rohingya insurgent attacks on security posts, the United Nations says. It says problems like children trafficking existed in Bangladesh s camps, even before they were overwhelmed by the more than 600,000 new arrivals. Now, driven by a need for food and other essentials, trade is starting to thrive in the Palong Khali camp, located about 4 km (2.5 miles) from the Naf River that marks the border between Bangladesh and Myanmar. For the photo essay on trading inside the camps click on: reut.rs/2A5Sg7v Some refugees are returning to their previous occupations to eke out a living. Abul Fayaj, a 50-year-old vegetable seller from Buthidaung township in Rakhine, now sells green chilies to residents of the camp. He said a Bangladeshi lent him money for the chilies, which he sells for 200 taka ($2.39) per kg, higher than the local market price of 130 taka per kg. I don t have the money to take lots of food, that s why I have to take a loan, he said. I have to pay more to the lender who gave me the money to buy the vegetables, so there is only a small profit, said Fayaj, adding he takes home 100 taka a day. Obaidul Mannan, 40, with five daughters and two sons, traded clocks in Myanmar until the military came to his village, arresting people and burning homes. He now sells betel nut that he bought with 9 grams (0.3 ounces) of gold that belonged to his wife. His complaints are common to shopkeepers everywhere. The problem I m facing here is that I m selling next door to traders who are also selling the same items, he said. Some Bangladeshi shopkeepers have hired Rohingya to run shops within the camp. Kalim Ullah, 42, fled from the Buthidaung area with his wife, six sons and a daughter. He used to transport goods in Myanmar, but was told that Rohingya could not own a business in Bangladesh. Ullah joined up with a local business owner and now sells snacks and red chilies in the camp for a daily wage of 100 taka. Two Bangladesh government officials confirmed that the refugees are not legally allowed to own businesses in the country since they are not citizens. We are giving all kind of humanitarian assistance. They are not our citizens, said a senior home ministry official. The Myanmar government will have to take them back. Bangladeshis are aware of the opportunities that the Rohingya exodus provides for trade and a number of them have moved closer to the camps. Abdur Razzak, 26, sells knives, pots and water buckets in the Palong Khali camp where he set up shop three months ago. After paying rent on his shop, wages for two assistants and transporting goods from the town of Ukhia, about 9 km (5.4 miles) north of the camp, Razzak earns about 500 taka profit on sales of 2,000 taka. I m not making a lot of money. I just profit a little, he said. ($1 = 83.7000 taka) | 0 |
LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May spoke on Monday to U.S. President Donald Trump and agreed that “a window of opportunity” exists to persuade Russia to break ties with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, May’s office said. A spokeswoman for the prime minister said Trump had thanked May for her support following last week’s U.S. military action in Syria against the Assad regime. The White House later on Monday said Trump had spoken with May and separately with German Chancellor Angela Merkel by telephone about the U.S. attack and thanked them for their support. It said in a statement that May and Merkel expressed support for the U.S. action and agreed with Trump on the importance of holding Assad accountable. In a shift in Washington’s strategy, U.S. missiles hit a Syrian air base last week in retaliation for what the United States and its allies say was a poison gas attack by Syria’s military in which scores of civilians died. The Syrian government has denied it was behind the assault. Trump had previously appeared disinclined to intervene against the Syrian leader and the attack raised expectations that he might now be ready to adopt a tougher-than-expected stance with Russia, Assad’s main backer. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is due to travel to Moscow this week and the spokeswoman for May said the two leaders had agreed during their conversation that the visit was an opportunity to make progress toward a solution. “The prime minister and the president agreed that a window of opportunity now exists in which to persuade Russia that its alliance with Assad is no longer in its strategic interest,” the spokeswoman said. “They agreed that U.S. Secretary of State Tillerson’s visit to Moscow this week provides an opportunity to make progress toward a solution which will deliver a lasting political settlement.” The spokeswoman said the two leaders had also stressed the importance of the international community, including China, putting pressure on North Korea to constrain the threat it poses. | 1 |
Georgia conservatives really wanted to enshrine their hate and bigotry into law under the guise of religious liberty, and because their governor refused to do so they are punishing him.Unlike the Republican governors of North Carolina and Mississippi, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal refused to sign the anti-LGBT bill passed by the GOP-controlled legislature. Deal mulled over the bill while witnessing the economic backlash similar bills are causing other states.In North Carolina alone, corporations are threatening to leave or have cancelled plans to expand into the state, resulting in the loss of hundreds of jobs and money that could have sparked economic growth. Furthermore, the state also faces the loss of federal dollars. Mississippi is facing the same backlash and South Carolina has also suffered the loss of a corporate headquarters for just introducing the bill.Georgia certainly faced the same consequences. Disney and Marvel threatened to stop filming movies in the state and other corporations and businesses urged the governor to veto the bill.Realizing that the economic backlash was not worth it, Governor Deal vetoed HB 757. He angered conservatives but saved the economy of his state from ruin.But those conservatives were looking forward to being able to use their Bibles as a shield so they can discriminate against anyone they please.And so, they decided to send a message to Republicans and any Republican who sits in the governor s mansion in the future that not doing what they want is unacceptable and will be punished.Despite being urged not to do so, conservatives of the Georgia Third District voted overwhelmingly to censure Deal. According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution: Though it is purely symbolic, it s a startling sign of the conservative backlash to Deal s decision to reject the legislation and another reminder that the debate over the measure never really ended. A censure is a formal statement of severe disapproval, which means Republicans literally just punished Deal publicly for refusing to support a bigoted policy supported by conservatives in his state.It s basically a warning shot to other Republicans that they better not veto future efforts to legalize discrimination in Georgia or they too could be censured or worse.This is why Republicans made a huge mistake by letting extremists have a mainstream seat at the party table. Because now they are beholden to do as the extremists desire or else.Featured image via YouTube | 0 |
PARIS (Reuters) - Marine Le Pen has acted to reassert her authority over France s far-right National Front with the forced departure of her deputy, but still faces a struggle to persuade the party base that she has what it takes to win an election. The exit of Florian Philippot, who quit last week over policy differences with Le Pen since her resounding defeat by Emmanuel Macron in May s presidential election, shows the 49-year-old daughter of party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen can be tough when required. But her past flip-flops over policy, and less-than-assured performance in a TV debate against Macron before the presidential run-off, have raised doubts about whether she can take the National Front from being a major factor in French politics to a party that can hold power. Le Pen s image has seriously deteriorated, said Frederic Dabi of polling group Ifop, who carried out a survey on Sept 7-8 that shows only 27 percent of voters think she has the stature of a president, down seven percentage points since March. Her problem in terms of image is not authority, she is seen as being very firm, but it is competence, stature, he said. Can she be seen as an alternative to Emmanuel Macron? It s not looking that way. Le Pen took a lower-than-expected 33.9 percent of votes in the presidential run-off, while her party won only 8.75 percent in the second round of parliamentary elections that followed. However, support for the European far-right may not have peaked despite setbacks in the Netherlands and Austria too. At the weekend, the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany scored 12.6 percent in federal elections, becoming the first far-right party to enter the Bundestag in more than half a century an outcome Le Pen praised.[nL8N1M6092] [nL5N1M50PJ] A lawyer by training, Le Pen took over the party in 2011 and quickly managed to build a broader following. She succeeded in detoxifying its image, distancing it from the anti-Semitic labels it attracted under her father, and adopting pro-welfare economic policies that appealed to a wider range of voters. Out went her father, the one-eyed former paratrooper who reveled in provocative comments, expelled from the party in 2015. In came the daughter s softer image, with talk of lowering the retirement age and protecting workers. She went on TV to talk about her love of gardening. A lot of that image adjustment was down to Philippot, a graduate of France s elite ENA administrative school who joined the party in 2011 and quickly rose to the top, an architect of Le Pen s 2012 and 2017 campaigns. But having broken with her father and now with Philippot, Le Pen must now show that she can get the policy mix right before another possible presidential bid in 2022. The dispute with Philippot came to a head over the party s anti-euro stance. For her supporters, Le Pen s willingness to sacrifice her closest aide when he refused to do what he was told underscores her leadership credentials. It shows that she gives priority to what s good for the party above personal considerations, Gaetan Dussausaye, the head of the party s youth group, told Reuters. She knows what she wants, she s got strong beliefs and she ll do whatever is necessary to defend them, said Dussausaye, who is a member of the National Front s top political committee. But others worry about her flashes of aggression and lack of preparedness in the presidential debate, followed by the elections underperformance. They believe this means she has work to do to persuade the grassroots and beyond them, a big enough number of voters that she s a winner. A survey by Odoxa pollsters, carried out on Sept 6-7, showed that the biggest danger for Le Pen may come from within from inside the family as much as the party. This showed Marion Marechal-Le Pen, Marine s niece, who temporarily stepped away from politics, is the only top official seen as an asset by a majority of party members surveyed. More than half saw Marine Le Pen as a liability. Jerome Riviere, a former conservative lawmaker who joined Le Pen s campaign team, praised her openness to adjustments, including softening her anti-euro stance. A good party chief needs to be representative of what grassroots activists want, he said. But Le Pen s handling of the break with Philippot led others to conclude that she no longer knows where she stands. There is a rise in influence of people who advise her in a way that is not true to her beliefs or good for the party, Alain Avello, a regional councillor, told Reuters. Avello, who once described himself a Marine-ite , is one of several National Front members to have quit the party after Philippot s departure. A crucial question will be how much Le Pen now allows the party s policies to evolve. Philippot had long advocated a tough anti-euro and pro-welfare policy, which Le Pen had backed. But others want the party to re-focus on its anti-immigrant, economically liberal roots. It is expected to decide a new strategy and policies at a congress in March. In a letter to National Front members the day Philippot quit, Le Pen said the debate on overhauling the party would continue until the congress. She will tour France to meet supporters, who will be asked in a questionnaire how they want the party to change. It is important to me that you, National Front members, be the ones to decide, Le Pen said. | 0 |
The Republican presidential field, which for much of the year has been full-throated in its denunciations of Planned Parenthood, has been nearly silent about the shooting in Colorado at one of its facilities that left a police officer and two others dead.
In contrast, all three of the leading Democratic contenders quickly issued statements in support of Planned Parenthood.
President Obama, meanwhile, focused on the episode as more impetus for a renewed push to stop “the easy accessibility of weapons of war on our streets to people who have no business wielding them. Period. Enough is enough.”
Not until much more is known about alleged gunman Robert Lewis Dear Jr. and his precise motivations will the political implications of his actions become clear. It was suspected, according to a law enforcement official, that heated rhetoric surrounding the issue of abortion influenced Dear’s actions.
The setting he chose was one that has developed particular resonance this election cycle, after an antiabortion group released a series of secretly filmed videos in which Planned Parenthood officials discuss the techniques and financial aspects of harvesting fetal tissue samples for scientific research.
The videos, which Planned Parenthood noted were heavily edited, showed the officials talking about gruesome details with clinical detachment. Many Republicans have also accused Planned Parenthood of selling such tissue, which would be illegal and which the organization vehemently denies.
[Undercover video shows Planned Parenthood official discussing fetal organs used for research]
Stopping federal funding of the organization has become a rallying cry of Republican politicians and a battle flag in the larger, decades-long political struggle over abortion rights. Democrats have also been vociferous in their defense of the organization, which they say is a crucial provider of women’s health services.
As a presidential campaign issue, criticism of Planned Parenthood reached a crescendo during the Sept. 16 GOP presidential debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif.
“I dare Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama to watch these tapes. Watch a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain. This is about the character of our nation,” former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina said during the debate.
Her characterization of the video was incorrect, conflating the image of a fetus with a voice claiming to witness another scene. But it packed an emotional wallop, and Fiorina has continued to insist that it was accurate.
[Fact-checking the second round of GOP debates]
Fiorina has not said anything publicly about the shootings at the clinic, but a campaign spokeswoman noted that she is scheduled to appear on “Fox News Sunday.”
The only GOP contenders to make reference to the Colorado shooting as of late Saturday were Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), Ohio Gov. John Kasich and former Florida governor Jeb Bush.
All expressed sympathy for the victims, though none of the three mentioned Planned Parenthood. Bush, however, said: “There is no acceptable explanation for this violence, and I will continue to pray for those who have been impacted.”
Cruz tweeted Saturday morning: “Praying for the loved ones of those killed, those injured & first responders who bravely got the situation under control in Colorado Springs.”
The reactions of Colorado’s two senators were also telling of the political sensitivities.
Democrat Michael F. Bennet tweeted: “Our thoughts tonight are with the victims and their families, Planned Parenthood, and the city and police department of Colorado Springs”
The state’s junior senator, Republican Cory Gardner — who defeated incumbent Mark Udall last year in an election that Democrats tried to make a referendum on reproductive rights — issued a statement Saturday night that did not mention the site of the killings.
Gardner said that he and his wife, Jaime, were “deeply saddened by the events that unfolded in Colorado Springs earlier today. This senseless act of violence is truly tragic and our hearts are with the victims and their families during this difficult time.”
At a rally Saturday in Sarasota, Fla., GOP front-runner Donald Trump stressed his opposition to gun control but talked only about the terrorist attacks in Paris.
“If some of those folks that were just slaughtered in Paris, if a couple of guns were in that room that were held by the good guys, you would’ve had a different story, let me tell you,” Trump said.
Leading Democrats expressed support and sympathy for Planned Parenthood, but most stopped short of asserting that the gunman was motivated by animosity toward the organization and one of the services it offers. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, however, seemed to be edging in that direction.
“While we still do not know the shooter’s motive, what is clear is that Planned Parenthood has been the subject of vicious and unsubstantiated statements attacking an organization that provides critical health care for millions of Americans,” Sanders said. “I strongly support Planned Parenthood and the work it is doing, and hope people realize that bitter rhetoric can have unintended consequences.”
His rivals for the Democratic nomination, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, contained their comments to tweets that included the hashtag “#StandWithPP.”
In Saturday’s statement, Obama said, “We don’t yet know what this particular gunman’s so-called motive was for shooting twelve people, or for terrorizing an entire community, when he opened fire with an assault weapon and took hostages at a Planned Parenthood center in Colorado.”
“What we do know is that he killed a cop in the line of duty, along with two of the citizens that police officer was trying to protect,” he said. “And we know that more Americans and their families had fear forced upon them.”
Rebecca Sinderbrand in Sarasota, Fla., contributed to this report. | 1 |
BEIJING (Reuters) - The North Korean nuclear issue needs a peaceful resolution, Chinese President Xi Jinping told U.S. President Donald Trump in a telephone call on Saturday, and called on the “relevant side” to exercise restraint, state television said. Trump issued a new threat to North Korea on Friday, saying the U.S. military was “locked and loaded”, as Pyongyang accused him of driving the Korean peninsula to the brink of nuclear war and world powers expressed alarm. Xi told Trump that it was in the joint interests of both China and the United States to achieve the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula and protect peace and stability there, state television said in a brief report. “The relevant side must at present exercise restraint, and avoid words and actions that exacerbate tensions on the Korean peninsula,” the report paraphrased Xi as saying. Resolving the nuclear issue ultimately needs to be done politically via talks, and China is willing to maintain communication with the United States on the basis of mutual respect to push for an appropriate resolution, Xi added. Chinese state television cited Trump as telling Xi that he fully understands the role China has been playing on the North Korean nuclear issue. | 1 |
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Three women who have accused U.S. President Donald Trump of sexual misconduct called on Monday for a congressional investigation into his behavior amid a wave of similar accusations against prominent men in Hollywood, the media and politics. Over the past two years, more than a dozen women have accused Trump of making unwanted sexual advances against them years before he entered politics. Three of his accusers, Jessica Leeds, Rachel Crooks, and Samantha Holvey said at a news conference on Monday that the accusations warranted new consideration given the broader discussion of sexual harassment in U.S. society. Brave New Films, a nonprofit filmmaker, produced a video featuring 16 of Trump’s accusers and organized the news conference in New York on Monday. In the film, women accused Trump of kissing them without permission, grabbing their private parts, putting his hand up their skirts, or making other unwanted advances. Congress should “put aside their party affiliations and investigate Mr. Trump’s history of sexual misconduct,” said Crooks, a former receptionist for a real estate firm, who was flanked by Leeds and Holvey. The women said they do not think Trump will resign over the allegations but that he should be held accountable. Trump and White House officials have denied the allegations, some of which date back to the 1980s. “These false claims, totally disputed in most cases by eyewitness accounts, were addressed at length during last year’s campaign, and the American people voiced their judgment by delivering a decisive victory,” a White House spokesperson said in a statement on Monday, questioning the women’s timing and political motives. Trump, a Republican, faces legal action in one related case. Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand told CNN that Trump should resign over the accusations. “These allegations are credible,” Gillibrand said in an interview on Monday with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “They are numerous. I’ve heard these women’s testimony, and many of them are heartbreaking.” Gillibrand recently said former President Bill Clinton, a fellow Democrat, should have stepped down during the 1990s scandal that led the House of Representatives to vote to impeach him. On Monday, she said that if Trump does not immediately resign, Congress “should have appropriate investigations of his behavior and hold him accountable.” A number of powerful and high-profile men have been accused in recent months of sexual misconduct, including three members of Congress, Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein and former NBC news anchor Matt Lauer. Reuters has not independently verified the accusations against Trump, Weinstein, Lauer or the three congressmen. Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and one of the most high-profile women in Trump’s administration, said on Sunday that any woman who has felt mistreated by a man has the right to speak up, even if she is accusing the president. Democrat Chris Coons, a member of the Senate Judiciary panel, said it was unlikely that the Republican-controlled Congress would act on the accusations, which were known before the November 2016 presidential election. “My hunch is it gets reviewed at the next election,” Coons told CNN. Sexual harassment accusations have also been made against Republican candidate Roy Moore who is running in a U.S. Senate race this week in Alabama. Trump has backed Moore, a former judge, even as congressional Republicans denounced the candidate and called on him to pull out of the race. The accusations against Trump emerged during the 2016 presidential campaign when a videotape surfaced of a 2005 conversation caught on an open microphone in which Trump spoke in vulgar terms about trying to have sex with women. Trump apologized for the remarks, but called them private “locker-room talk” and said he had not done the things he talked about. | 1 |
BOSASO, Somalia (Reuters) - An army colonel in the semi-autonomous Puntland region who also headed the region s bomb disposal unit was killed on Tuesday after a roadside bomb he was defusing exploded, a military official said. The incident occurred on a road that links Bosaso, Puntland s second biggest city, with Galgala Hills which is controlled by al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab group. Colonel Osman Abshir Omar was killed after he started dismantling the bomb on Tuesday, one of his colleagues said. We were with the Colonel. He stopped the car, got down and started dismantling a bomb but it suddenly went off and killed him on the spot, Major Abdirizak Mohamed, who was among thesoldiers accompanying Omar, told Reuters. Al Shabaab claimed responsibility. We targeted the Colonel. We exploded the bomb, Abdiasis Abu Musab, al Shabaab s spokesman for military operations, said. Militant attacks in Puntland are rare compared to the rest of Somalia mainly because its security forces are relatively regularly paid and receive substantial U.S. assistance. Al Shabaab, which aims to topple Somalia s government and impose its strict version of Islam on the Horn of Africa state, has become more active in Puntland after being pushed out of its stronghold further south by African Union peacekeepers and the Somali army, officials say. This year there has been rise in violence in Puntland by a splinter group linked to Islamic State have attacked government troops. | 1 |
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at 1:10 pm 3 Comments
WAR is a racket. It always has been.
It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small “inside” group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.
– From Major General Smedley Butler’s War is a Rackett
Former Congressman Dennis Kucinich has just penned an extremely powerful warning about the warmongers in Washington D.C. Who funds them, what their motives are, and why it is imperative for the American people to stop them.
The piece was published at The Nation and is titled: Why Is the Foreign Policy Establishment Spoiling for More War? Look at Their Donors .
Read it and share it with everyone you know.
W ashington, DC, may be the only place in the world where people openly flaunt their pseudo-intellectuality by banding together, declaring themselves “think tanks,” and raising money from external interests, including foreign governments, to compile reports that advance policies inimical to the real-life concerns of the American people.
As a former member of the House of Representatives, I remember 16 years of congressional hearings where pedigreed experts came to advocate wars in testimony based on circular, rococo thinking devoid of depth, reality, and truth. I remember other hearings where the Pentagon was unable to reconcile over $1 trillion in accounts, lost track of $12 billion in cash sent to Iraq, and rigged a missile-defense test so that an interceptor could easily home in on a target. War is first and foremost a profitable racket.
How else to explain that in the past 15 years this city’s so called bipartisan foreign policy elite has promoted wars in Iraq and Libya, and interventions in Syria and Yemen, which have opened Pandora’s box to a trusting world, to the tune of trillions of dollars, a windfall for military contractors. DC’s think “tanks” should rightly be included in the taxonomy of armored war vehicles and not as gathering places for refugees from academia.
According to the front page of this past Friday’s Washington Post, the bipartisan foreign-policy elite recommends the next president show less restraint than President Obama. Acting at the urging of “liberal” hawks brandishing humanitarian intervention, read war, the Obama administration attacked Libya along with allied powers working through NATO.
Indeed, I warned about this in last week’s piece: U.S. Foreign Policy ‘Elite’ Eagerly Await an Expansion of Overseas Wars Under Hillary Clinton .
The think tankers fell in line with the Iraq invasion. Not being in the tank, I did my own analysis of the call for war in October of 2002, based on readily accessible information, and easily concluded that there was no justification for war. I distributed it widely in Congress and led 125 Democrats in voting against the Iraq war resolution. There was no money to be made from a conclusion that war was uncalled for, so, against millions protesting in the United States and worldwide, our government launched into an abyss, with a lot of armchair generals waving combat pennants. The marching band and chowder society of DC think tanks learned nothing from the Iraq and Libya experience.
The only winners were arms dealers, oil companies, and jihadists. Immediately after the fall of Libya, the black flag of Al Qaeda was raised over a municipal building in Benghazi, Gadhafi’s murder was soon to follow, with Secretary Clinton quipping with a laugh, “We came, we saw, he died.” President Obama apparently learned from this misadventure, but not the Washington policy establishment, which is spoiling for more war.
The self-identified liberal Center for American Progress (CAP) is now calling for Syria to be bombed, and estimates America’s current military adventures will be tidied up by 2025, a tardy twist on “mission accomplished.” CAP, according to a report in The Nation, has received funding from war contractors Lockheed Martin and Boeing, who make the bombers that CAP wants to rain hellfire on Syria.
The Brookings Institute has taken tens of millions from foreign governments , notably Qatar, a key player in the military campaign to oust Assad. Retired four-star Marine general John Allen is now a Brookings senior fellow . Charles Lister is a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute , which has received funding from Saudi Arabia , the major financial force providing billions in arms to upend Assad and install a Sunni caliphate stretching across Iraq and Syria. Foreign-government money is driving our foreign policy.
As the drumbeat for an expanded war gets louder, Allen and Lister jointly signed an op-ed in the Sunday Washington Post, calling for an attack on Syria. The Brookings Institute, in a report to Congress , admitted it received $250,000 from the US Central Command, Centcom, where General Allen shared leadership duties with General David Petraeus. Pentagon money to think tanks that endorse war? This is academic integrity, DC-style.
And why is Central Command, as well as the Food and Drug Administration, the US Department of transportation, and the US Department of Health and Human Services giving money to Brookings?
Former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, who famously told Colin Powell , “What’s the point of having this superb military you’re always talking about if we can’t use it,” predictably says of this current moment , “We do think there needs to be more American action.” A former Bush administration top adviser is also calling for the United States to launch a cruise missile attack on Syria.
The American people are fed up with war, but a concerted effort is being made through fearmongering, propaganda, and lies to prepare our country for a dangerous confrontation, with Russia in Syria.
The demonization of Russia is a calculated plan to resurrect a raison d’être for stone-cold warriors trying to escape from the dustbin of history by evoking the specter of Russian world domination.
It’s infectious. Earlier this year the BBC broadcast a fictional show that contemplated WWIII, beginning with a Russian invasion of Latvia (where 26 percent of the population is ethnic Russian and 34 percent of Latvians speak Russian at home).
The imaginary WWIII scenario conjures Russia’s targeting London for a nuclear strike. No wonder that by the summer of 2016 a poll showed two-thirds of UK citizens approved the new British PM’s launching a nuclear strike in retaliation. So much for learning the lessons detailed in the Chilcot report.
As this year’s presidential election comes to a conclusion, the Washington ideologues are regurgitating the same bipartisan consensus that has kept America at war since 9/11 and made the world a decidedly more dangerous place.
The DC think tanks provide cover for the political establishment, a political safety net, with a fictive analytical framework providing a moral rationale for intervention, capitol casuistry. I’m fed up with the DC policy elite who cash in on war while presenting themselves as experts, at the cost of other people’s lives, our national fortune, and the sacred honor of our country.
Any report advocating war that comes from any alleged think tank ought to be accompanied by a list of the think tank’s sponsors and donors and a statement of the lobbying connections of the report’s authors.
It is our patriotic duty to expose why the DC foreign-policy establishment and its sponsors have not learned from their failures and instead are repeating them, with the acquiescence of the political class and sleepwalkers with press passes.
It is also time for a new peace movement in America, one that includes progressives and libertarians alike, both in and out of Congress, to organize on campuses, in cities, and towns across America, to serve as an effective counterbalance to the Demuplican war party, its think tanks, and its media cheerleaders. The work begins now, not after the Inauguration. We must not accept war as inevitable, and those leaders who would lead us in that direction, whether in Congress or the White House, must face visible opposition.
Thank you Mr. Kucinich, I couldn’t agree more.
For related articles, see: | 0 |
President Obama began the new year of 2016 with a video asking for the nation s help in fighting one of its biggest problems: gun violence.In his weekly presidential address Obama ran through the accomplishments of his administration from 2009 to present, including job creation, expansion of health insurance, lowered oil costs, and marriage equality. Then he spoke about the unfinished business of fighting the epidemic of gun violence.Last month, we remembered the third anniversary of Newtown. This Friday, I ll be thinking about my friend Gabby Giffords, five years into her recovery from the shooting in Tucson. And all across America, survivors of gun violence and those who lost a child, a parent, a spouse to gun violence are forced to mark such awful anniversaries every single day.Obama then noted that even though a majority of homes support policies to expand background checks even homes with NRA members the Republican congress refuses to move ahead at the behest of the well-financed National Rifle Association.As a result, Obama notes that tens of thousands of our fellow Americans have been mowed down by gun violence. But even though its his last year in office, the President is not going to stand still on the issue, despite the threat of backlash from the NRA.A few months ago, I directed my team at the White House to look into any new actions I can take to help reduce gun violence. And on Monday, I ll meet with our Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, to discuss our options. Because I get too many letters from parents, and teachers, and kids, to sit around and do nothing. I get letters from responsible gun owners who grieve with us every time these tragedies happen; who share my belief that the Second Amendment guarantees a right to bear arms; and who share my belief we can protect that right while keeping an irresponsible, dangerous few from inflicting harm on a massive scale.Obama doesn t have to do this, he could sit in office for the next 12 months on his laurels and just accept the achievements that he s accomplished. But he clearly wants to do more, and he s going to get it done.Featured image via YouTube | 0 |
A couple of artists purchased the bus that Donald Trump used while campaigning in Iowa. The artists have turned the bus into a spectacle of political satire. They have made many changes to the bus, including changing Trump s campaign slogan from, Make America Great Again to Make Fruit Punch Great Again. One of the funniest things about the bus wasn t even added by the artists. The bus was initially rented from a party bus rental company, so it features a stripper pole. The artists left it in, as they saw it as a perfect metaphor for Trump and his campaign. The bus used to be used as a party bus and the Trump campaign leased it from them, but they never removed the stripper pole. So we re kind of using that as kind of a metaphor for Trump. Like all good satire, the bus is only changed slightly. The artists added elements that fictionalize reality, in order to better examine it. The small changes lead people to come look at the bus, with them not initially realizing what the bus actually is. People come over and they re all excited and they don t even read that it says Make Fruit Punch Great Again, said Mary Mihelic, an artist who is part of the anti-Trump bus project according to the The Guardian. And they re just totally taking pictures and then you ll hear someone say, Honey, it s a gag! It s a gag! And we just crack up. The artists explain their intentions behind the installation in a video that is embedded below. They claim that their work is meant to be non-partisan. That being said, they say that they really, really do not want Trump to be the next president of The United States.You can watch a video about the mobile installation, below. Featured image from video screen capture | 0 |
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Friday rejected an effort by Joaquin Guzman, the accused Mexican drug lord known as El Chapo, to dismiss a massive international narcotics conspiracy indictment on the ground he was extradited improperly to Brooklyn. While not challenging the merits of the case, Guzman s lawyers claimed that the indictment violated the extradition treaty between the United States and Mexico because Mexican authorities initially agreed to extradite their client only to southern California or western Texas. The lawyers questioned how Mexico could have suddenly consented to have U.S. authorities hurry Guzman to Brooklyn in New York City to face charges other than those for which his extradition had been sought, violating the so-called Rule of Specialty. But in a brief order, U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan said Guzman had no legal right to challenge the Brooklyn indictment because Mexico had not objected to it. Cogan also said the federal appeals court in Manhattan, whose jurisdiction includes the Brooklyn courthouse, upheld this principle in late July in an unrelated case. Here, there is no protest or objection by Mexico, nor is there an express provision in the extradition treaty between the United States and Mexico, Cogan wrote. Therefore, defendant s motion to dismiss the indictment based on an alleged Rule of Specialty violation is denied. Michelle Gelernt, a federal public defender representing Guzman, in an email said her office was disappointed, but not surprised with the order. We still believe Mr. Guzman s rights under the treaty were violated, and given that other circuit courts give the defendant the right to object to violations of extradition treaties, hope that the Supreme Court will decide this issue favorably to Mr. Guzman, she said. Prosecutors accused Guzman, 60, of running a global cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine smuggling operation as the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, and playing a major role in a decade-long Mexican drug war where more than 100,000 people have died. Guzman faces life in prison if convicted. He is being held without bail. | 0 |
November 3, 2016
A man who spent an entire afternoon browsing ‘half-heartedly’ at the shirts in Charles Tyrwhitt’s flagship store in London’s Jermyn Street has admitted he was only there to hear someone say the name ‘Tyrwhitt’ out loud.
“We get all these leaflets and inserts from Charles whatsisface through the post and I’m tired of saying to the wife ‘just some more rubbish from Charles thingummy, dear’, and her saying ‘who?’ and me going ‘Trywhite, tirrywitt, trrrHitt, tyreRwhite’, and her getting worried about me.”
“So I decided to find out how you said the name of the person whose leaflets account for most of the stuff in our recycling bin. Unfortunately, not a single customer came in so I was unable to witness any conversations about this twirrit shirt or that tirriwrit tie. I thought my luck was in when the assistant mistook me for someone genuinely interested in the range of middlemanagerwear on display, but when he said it was one of Charles Wossname’s biggest sellers, he sort of mumbled the wossname bit.” Bravenewmalden Bravenewmalden News In Brief 0 | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday rejected speculation that future tax legislation could include temporary tax cuts for businesses, saying macro-economic elements of tax reform including rates must be permanent. “We very passionately believe that permanence is very, very important. So the big decision-making provisions in the tax code? - That stuff’s got to be permanent,” Ryan said in an interview with CNBC television. “There are other things you can do that can have time dates on it, to make sure that the numbers work. But the big macro-economic policies - the rates and things like that - that stuff has to be made permanent.” Ryan also said Republicans intend to keep a popular homeowner deduction for mortgage interest payments that some have talked about capping to help pay for tax cuts. But he indicated the deduction could change. “We recognize, acknowledge and believe you need to maintain the mortgage interest deduction. Whether it can be improved and how it works, that’s a discussion we’ll have on an ongoing basis,” Ryan said. President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress have vowed to slash business tax rates and overhaul the U.S. tax code before year end, with a Republican-only strategy that requires a special parliamentary procedure to get legislation through the Senate on a simple majority. Republicans control the Senate by only a 52-48 margin. But they have struggled to find ways to pay for lower rates without violating Senate rules by expanding the federal deficit outside a 10-year budget window. Lobbyists say closed-door discussions between Congress and the Trump administration have considered an approach that would make tax cuts sunset after a decade, avoiding a Senate rule violation. But without permanent tax rates, Ryan said that businesses would be less likely to make the multi-year, multibillion-dollar investments necessary for driving economic growth, which Republicans say is their ultimate goal. “There are some who have said that because of our budget process, we might want to go temporary. It doesn’t actually work that way,” he said. “Permanence works, permanence is necessary and permanence is absolutely doable.” | 0 |
Diversity Macht Frei October 27, 2016
The Jews have successfully foisted Holocaust propaganda on the entire western world, instilling generations of Europeans with an irrational sense of guilt about their own culture, history and civilisation. Children are forced to read Anne Frank’s bogus diary, which was written by her father. Trips to Auschwitz are expensively arranged. Schindler’s List is dutifully screened. And politicians line up to pay their respects at Holocaust Memorial Day.
The focus on Hitler instead of other higher-bodycount mass murderers like Stalin and Mao, and the elevation of Jewish victimhood at the expense of other targeted groups, constitute an extraordinary manifestation of Jewish Privilege; one that begins to seem anomalous sooner or later. And this sense of its anomalousness provokes attempts turn the Holocaust propaganda ceremonies into more general commemorations of suffering. In Eastern Europe, as I have written about before, there has also been an effort to draw parallels between Hitler and Stalin, advancing the notion of a “Double Genocide”.
But the Jews are not happy about this attempt to take their preciousss away. Writing in the Jerusalem Post, Seth J. Frantzman even calls this tendency towards universalism a “second genocide”.
In recent years there has been a tendency to revise the history of the Holocaust. In the West this takes the form of universalizing it and diluting its meaning. For instance a statement by then EU high representative for foreign affairs Catherine Ashton in 2014 didnât mention Jewish victims when it sought to âhonor every one of those brutally murdered in the darkest period of European history.â
…
THE DOUBLE genocide concept being advanced in Eastern Europe appears slightly less pernicious than that of universalization. Whereas universalization turns every atrocity into a âholocaustâ and accuses Jews of being âparticularistâ or âjudeo-centricâ for caring about the Shoah, the double genocide view accepts that there was a Holocaust but then wants to add another pillar of victims beside it, not totally dilute the two.
However Efraim Zuroff has noted that this amounts to âclaiming that Communist crimes were just as bad as those of the Third Reich and in fact constitute genocide, and the glorification of Lithuanians who fought against the Soviets.â The result is that in countries across Eastern Europe there is an attempt to lionize those like Stepan Bandera, the Ukrainian nationalist who fought the communists.
But what happens when those local nationalists were also antisemites or when the local narrative is that, yes, the Nazis killed many Jews, but âweâ lost many more to the Soviets. For them commemoration of the Jewish victims palls in comparison to their own historic memory.
Double genocide is built on local nationalism that wants the countryâs suffering to come first, not Holocaust memory. Universalism is built on disappearing the Jewish victims of the Holocaust and replacing them with everyone. Universalism constitutes a second genocide, aimed at memory and taking away of Jewish rights to memorialize their own people, a right taken away from no other group.
Source
So we goy have our marching orders. We must prostrate ourselves in front of the Holocaust from now to eternity, humbly handing over cash to its “victims” and their descendants; we must meekly acknowledge the “uniqueness” of their suffering; we must beseech their forgiveness. And we must never ask why it is that, across thousands of years of history, the Jews have so consistently provoked antagonism among the peoples they have lived among. | 0 |
Posted on November 7, 2016 by Carl Herman
John Hankey ’s documentary of the assassination of President Kennedy is the single most favorite of my US History students among ~100 film clips I show as a National Board Certified Teacher (shown below). John is a retired Advanced Placement US History teacher, and the best documentary I’ve found on that game-changing history revealing the US rogue state .
John’s sharp 12-minute video, Is Donald Trump for Real?
John has rushed to create the following 63-minute documentary connecting Donald Trump to the .01% criminal rogue state leaders: The first 27 minutes document that the Orlando “shooting” included concocted rhetoric to promote fear of so-called “radical Muslims.” This connects to FBI Director James Comey, who refused to prosecute Hillary Clinton for obvious crimes of secret State Department communications hiding Clinton Foundation looting in the billions, then attempting to destroy the e-mail evidence . This expands into CIA/US intelligence interests to recruit assets they use for rogue state actions , but pitch to assets as patriotic undercover service. John’s analysis concludes that since 9/11, any so-called “leader” fear-mongering of “radicalized Islam” are the real terrorists of the US rogue state. The head cheerleader for this fear is Rudy Giuliani, John Trump’s alleged Director of Homeland Security .
John’s commentary for this work:
I didn’t expect Trump to bring Rudy Giuliani into his campaign. I didn’t anticipate the speeches either of them would give at the convention. I didn’t expect Trump to pick someone as dark and dirty as Mike Pence as his vice President. Trump has tied himself, through his policies and speeches, to the perpetrators of both 911 and Orlando. That’s what I learned making this video.
What is the lesson from the 9-11 attacks? Who did the Orlando attacks? This video answers both questions. FBI director, Comey, and the entire FBI organization, began lying and covering up, within hours, perhaps minutes, of the Orlando shooting. He is clearly implicated. This is the same Comey that is in the news right now, holding himself up as a paragon of virtue.
I didn’t expect to learn what I did learn about the shooter: that he went along on ride-alongs with police in high school; that he told his high school friends that he wanted to be a cop; that he was hired by the state of Florida directly out of high school as a prison guard; that he got a degree in police science from the local college; that he worked for the most prestigious, high-security, government-contracted security firm in the world for the last 10 years. He received good reviews in every one of these positions from his supervisors. The FBI saw fit to not mention any of that in their discussions of him. The shooter was gay, and most definitely not devout as a Muslim. Dozens of witnesses say he was the nicest guy you’d ever want to meet. And he supported Hillary for president. Clearly he was expendable.
John’s game-changing documentary on the JFK assassination, Dark Legacy, in its 2-minute trailer :
1-minute video of George Bush, Sr.’s apparent duping delight of JFK’s assassination:
Dark Legacy highlights in ten minutes :
Full Dark Legacy documentary in 103 minutes :
My context for the .01% immediate history: The Crimes The US is a literal rogue state empire led by neocolonial looting liars. The history is uncontested and taught to anyone taking comprehensive courses. If anyone has any refutations of this professional academic factual claim for any of this easy-to-read and documented content , please provide it. US ongoing lie-started and Orwellian-illegal Wars of Aggression require all US military and government to refuse all war orders because there are no lawful orders for obviously unlawful wars. Officers are required to arrest those who issue obviously unlawful orders. And again, those of us working for this area of justice are aware of zero attempts to refute this with, “War law states (a, b, c), so the wars are legal because (d, e, f).” All we receive is easy-to-reveal bullshit . When Americans are told an election is defined by touching a computer screen without a countable receipt that can be verified, they are being told a criminal lie to allow election fraud . This is self-evident, but Princeton , Stanford , and the President of the American Statistical Association are among the leaders pointing to the obvious (and here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here ). Again, no professional would/can argue an election is legitimate when there is nothing for anyone to count. And, duh, corporate media are criminally complicit through constant lies of omission and commission to “cover” all these crimes. Historic tragic-comic empire is only possible through such straight-face lying, making our Emperor’s New Clothes analogy perfectly chosen. The top three benefits each of monetary reform and public banking total ~$1,000,000 for the average American household, and would be received nearly instantly. Please read that twice. Now look to verify for yourself . Demanding arrests as the required and obvious public response rather than ‘voting’ for more disaster:
The categories of crime include: Wars of Aggression (the worst crime a nation can commit). Likely treason for lying to US military, ordering unlawful attack and invasions of foreign lands, and causing thousands of US military deaths. Crimes Against Humanity for ongoing intentional policy of poverty that’s killed over 400 million human beings just since 1995 (~75% children; more deaths than from all wars in Earth’s recorded history).
US military, law enforcement, and all with Oaths to support and defend the US Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, face an endgame choice: Demand arrests , with those with lawful authority to enact it. An arrest is the lawful action to stop apparent crimes , with the most serious crimes documented here meaning the most serious need for arrests. Watch the US escalate its rogue state crimes that annually kill millions, harm billions, and loot trillions.
In just 90 seconds , former US Marine Ken O’Keefe powerfully states how you may choose to voice “very obvious solutions”: arrest the criminal leaders (video starts at 20:51, then finishes this episode of Cross Talk ): Solutions worth literal tens of trillions to ‘We the People’:
Again: The top three benefits each of monetary reform and public banking total ~$1,000,000 for the average American household, and would be received nearly instantly. Please read that twice. Now look to verify for yourself . We can quantify the end of the lie-started and illegal Wars of Aggression quickly into the trillions, and that said, it’s worth a lot more than what we quantify. Truth : a world in which education is expressed in its full potential to only and always begin with good-faith effort for objective, comprehensive, and verifiable data.
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Note: I make all factual assertions as a National Board Certified Teacher of US Government, Economics, and History, with all economics factual claims receiving zero refutation since I began writing in 2008 among Advanced Placement Macroeconomics teachers on our discussion board , public audiences of these articles , and international conferences (and here ). I invite readers to empower their civic voices with the strongest comprehensive facts most important to building a brighter future. I challenge professionals, academics, and citizens to add their voices for the benefit of all Earth’s inhabitants.
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Carl Herman is a National Board Certified Teacher of US Government, Economics, and History; also credentialed in Mathematics. He worked with both US political parties over 18 years and two UN Summits with the citizen’s lobby, RESULTS , for US domestic and foreign policy to end poverty. He can be reached at
Note: Examiner.com has blocked public access to my articles on their site (and from other whistleblowers), so some links in my previous work are blocked. If you’d like to search for those articles other sites may have republished, use words from the article title within the blocked link. Or, go to http://archive.org/web/ , p aste the expired link into the box, click “Browse history,” then click onto the screenshots of that page for each time it was screen-shot and uploaded to webarchive. I’ll update as “hobby time” allows; including my earliest work from 2009 to 2011 (blocked author pages: here , here ). This entry was posted in General . Bookmark the permalink . Donate Recent Posts | 1 |
Just another solider in Obama s Race War against Americans Funny I don t recall innocent people being shot because one of Obama s angry soldiers was upset about the multiple murders of young blacks in Chicago each and every week.A Tennessee man who fired on a motel and shot at passing cars on a highway was upset over recent police shootings, officials said Friday.Lakeem Keon Scott, 37, killed one person and wounded three others, including a police officer, when he opened fire early Thursday outside a Days Inn in Bristol, according to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.Investigators believe Scott wanted to harm police officers and others because he was angered by high-profile encounters between the police and black people across the country. Scott is black and all four of the shooting victims are white, according to the TBI. The work to investigate the motivation for this incident remains active and ongoing, TBI said in a statement Friday. Preliminarily, the investigation reveals Scott may have targeted individuals and officers after being troubled by recent incidents involving African-Americans and law enforcement officers in other parts of the country. Via: NY Daily News | 1 |
Sarah Huckabee Sanders was hot today when she went off on CNN s Jim Acosta over the fake news that s been constant the past few days. Jim Acosta also would not be quiet so Sanders had to get loud and forceful: I m not finished Sanders was making a point about reporters making a mistake vs when they report fake news on purpose There is a big difference.Go Sarah! There s a big difference between making honest mistakes and purposely misleading the American people something that happens regularly. Sarah Huckabee SandersFox News Insider reports:White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders battled CNN reporter Jim Acosta, accusing the mainstream media of purposefully putting out false information.As he began a question, Acosta told Sanders at Monday s press briefing that journalists make honest mistakes and that doesn t mean it s fake news. Sanders started to answer but Acosta and another reported interjected. I m sorry. I m not finished! she countered. There s a very big difference between making honest mistakes and purposefully misleading the American people, something that happens regularly, she shot back.Acosta asked for an example of a story that was intentionally false and meant to mislead Americans.Sanders called out the false report by ABC News Brian Ross on former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, which earned Ross a four-week suspension.She called it very telling that Ross was suspended. Acosta kept pushing Sanders to let him ask his original question about allegations of sexual misconduct against President Trump, but she refused. | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The special counsel investigating whether Russia tried to sway the 2016 U.S. election has taken over FBI inquiries into a former British spy’s dossier of allegations of Russian financial and personal links to President Donald Trump’s campaign and associates, sources familiar with the inquiry told Reuters. A report compiled by former MI6 officer Christopher Steele identified Russian businessmen and others whom U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded are Russian intelligence officers or working on behalf of the Russian government. A spokesman for special counsel Robert Mueller declined comment. The FBI also declined comment. Three sources with knowledge of Mueller’s probe said his investigators have assumed control of multiple inquiries into allegations by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in the election to benefit Trump, a Republican. Russia has repeatedly denied any meddling in the election. Two officials familiar with the investigations said that both Mueller’s team and the Senate Intelligence Committee are seeking any evidence that former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort or others who had financial dealings with Russia might have helped Kremlin intelligence agencies target email hacking and social media postings undermining Trump’s election opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton. On Wednesday, the Senate panel’s chairman Richard Burr told reporters that the issue of whether Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia remains an open question. “We have not come to any determination on collusion,” Burr said. Trump, who has called allegations of campaign collusion with Moscow a hoax, has faced questions about the matter since he took office in January. Trump was told by former FBI director James Comey that Steele’s report contained salacious material about the businessman-turned-president. Burr said on Wednesday that the Senate panel had made several attempts to contact Steele and to meet him and “those offers have gone unaccepted.” “The committee cannot really decide the credibility of the dossier without understanding things like who paid for it, who are your sources and sub-sources,” Burr said. Burr said the panel wanted to finish its investigation by the end of the year. Although several news organizations, including Reuters, were briefed on Steele’s dossier before the election in November, most decided not to report on the material because its inflammatory and sometimes salacious content could not be verified. In a report published in January four U.S. intelligence agencies said they took the dossier’s allegations seriously. Separately, three Russian businessmen, Mikhail Fridman, Petr Aven and German Khan have sued Washington investigations firm Fusion GPS and its founder, Glenn Simpson, with allegations that they were libeled in Steele’s dossier. A spokeswoman for Simpson and Fusion GPS declined to comment on the lawsuit filed on Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Washington. The lawsuit said that Steele’s reports were “gravely damaging” to the businessmen because they accused them “of criminal conduct and alleged cooperation with the ‘Kremlin’ to influence the 2016 presidential election.” The information on Trump collected by Steele, whom officials say was one of MI6’s most respected Russia hands, was laid out last year in political “opposition research” initially financed by supporters of one of Trump’s Republican primary election opponents. After Trump won the Republican nomination in July, backers of Clinton picked up the support of Steele’s work. The lawsuit said the dossier’s allegations are false in implying an improper “ongoing” relationship between the businessmen, the Alfa Group financial company in which they were investors and Russian President Vladimir Putin, and that a Russian government official acted as middleman in such contacts. | 1 |
LONDON (Reuters) - Arron Banks, a tycoon who backed leaving the European Union, on Wednesday dismissed allegations that Russia had funded Brexit. Britain s electoral commission earlier said it had opened an investigation into whether Banks breached campaign finance rules in the 2016 Brexit referendum. Allegations of Brexit being funded by the Russians... are complete bollocks (rubbish) from beginning to end, Banks said in an emailed statement. Commenting on the electoral commission investigation, Banks said: This is the Remain establishment once again trying to discredit the result and it s all starting to get rather boring! Banks ended the statement with the word Nostrovia , a mispronunciation of the Russian phrase na zdorovie which is sometimes used as a toast to good health when drinking. | 1 |
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe s main opposition said on Thursday it wanted incoming president Emmerson Mnangagwa to dismantle all pillars of repression that helped sustain Robert Mugabe s 37 years in power. In its first official comments since Mugabe resigned on Tuesday, the MDC said it was cautiously optimistic that a Mnangagwa presidency would not mimic and replicate the evil, corrupt, decadent and incompetent Mugabe regime. | 0 |
Calais Jungle already turned into luxury apartments 01-11-16 THE refugee camp in Calais has already become luxury apartments that only footballers and bankers can afford. The site, which housed some 2,000 refugees until last week, now contains 16 apartments that will never be used as the occupants already own at least four other properties each. Developer Julian Cook said: “We’re hoping to get some really rich people moved in here as soon as possible. “ We won’t be calling it the Calais Jungle any more either, because that might put some buyers off. It’ll be called Sunnyside Towers or the East Village or something stupidly nice instead. “Although there will be a club and cocktail bar in the basement called ‘Jungle Nites’, because when you build these places you have to respect local history.” “I t will have a massive wall built around it to make sure only rich people can get in.” He added: “ There will still be immigrants here, obviously. After all, the toilets won’t clean themselves.”
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Energy firm Florida Power & Light (FPL) said on Wednesday it could shut its four nuclear reactors in the path of Hurricane Irma before Saturday if the storm stayed on its current path. Based on the current track, we would expect severe weather in Florida starting Saturday, meaning we would potentially shut down before that point, spokesman Peter Robbins said in an email. The company, a subsidiary of NextEra Energy Inc, is watching the weather and would adjust any plans as necessary, Robbins said. The trajectory of Irma, a Category 5 storm with winds of 185 miles per hour (295 km per hour), is uncertain. Irma, which the U.S. National Hurricane Center said was the strongest Atlantic storm on record, was expected to pass near or just north of Puerto Rico on Wednesday before scraping the Dominican Republic on Thursday. FPL operates the St. Lucie nuclear power plant on Hutchinson Island, a barrier island on the Atlantic about 55 miles (88 km) north of West Palm Beach. Two reactors generate 2,000 megawatts of electricity, enough power to supply more than 1 million homes. It also operates Turkey Point nuclear power station on Biscayne Bay, about 24 miles south of Miami. That has two reactors that generate about 1,600 megawatts of electricity, or enough for about 900,000 homes. Robbins said the plants were designed to withstand extreme natural events including hurricanes and serious floods. | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump, poised to restore the conservative majority on the Supreme Court, met with key senators on Tuesday and promised to unveil his nominee next week, with three U.S. appeals court judges among those under close consideration. Trump met at the White House with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and the top Republican and Democrat on the Judiciary Committee to discuss filling the court’s lingering vacancy caused by the death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia more than 11 months ago. The lifetime appointment as a Supreme Court justice requires Senate confirmation. Leonard Leo, a conservative lawyer advising Trump, said the president “has definitely narrowed his focus” and is “looking very seriously” at a short list of candidates. Among the frontrunners are three conservative jurists: Neil Gorsuch, a judge on the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals; Thomas Hardiman, who serves on the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals; and William Pryor, a judge on the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. “Judges Gorsuch and Hardiman and Pryor have received a lot of attention from the president. He knows who they are. He is familiar with their records. He’s clearly impressed with their backgrounds,” Leo said. All three were appointed to the bench by Republican former President George W. Bush. “I’ll be making my decision this week. We’ll be announcing next week. We have outstanding candidates, and we will pick a truly great Supreme Court justice,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. The leading candidates all have strong conservative credentials. Gorsuch joined a ruling in 2013 saying that owners of private companies can object on religious grounds to a provision of the Obamacare health insurance law requiring employers to provide insurance covering birth control for women. Hardiman wrote an opinion in 2013 embracing a broad interpretation of the U.S. Constitution’s right to bear arms. Pryor has been an outspoken critic of the court’s 1973 landmark ruling that legalized abortion. Leo said all three are “very much in the mold of Justice Scalia,” who was among the most conservative members of the court. After the meeting with Trump, Schumer said he reiterated that the president “should pick a mainstream nominee who could earn bipartisan support” and that Democrats would fight any nominee they deem outside the mainstream. “I anticipate what we’re going to get from the president is a highly qualified, well-credentialed conservative jurist,” McConnell told reporters. Trump can name Scalia’s replacement because the Republican-led U.S. Senate, in an action with little precedent in U.S. history, last year refused to consider Democratic President Barack Obama’s nominee, appeals court judge Merrick Garland. Obama, who handed over power to Trump last Friday, nominated Garland on March 16, but Republican senators led by McConnell denied Garland the customary confirmation hearings and vote. Since Scalia’s death, the court has been deadlocked ideologically with four conservative justices and four liberals. A conservative replacement for Scalia would reinstate the court’s narrow conservative majority in place for decades. Trump’s fellow Republicans have a 52-48 majority in the Senate. Democrats, irate over Garland’s rebuff, potentially could try to block the nomination using procedural hurdles. | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde warned in an interview published on Thursday that anti-trade policies like those championed by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump risked a protectionist movement that could severely damage global growth. Lagarde told the Financial Times that with Britain’s vote to leave the European Union already casting a shadow over global growth, the imposition of new trade barriers in another larger economy could have “disastrous” effects. “I think it would be quite disastrous, actually. Well I don’t think I should say disastrous because that is an excessive word and I should refrain from excessive words. But it would certainly have a negative impact on global growth,” she told the FT in response to a question about such policies. The newspaper said that while Lagarde made clear her negative views of anti-trade rhetoric and policies, she refrained from referring to Trump by name or singling out any politician. Lagarde also told the FT that she doubted that a prolonged period of uncertainty over Britain’s exit, without triggering formal separation negotiations, would be politically sustainable. “We want to see clarity sooner rather than later because we think that a lack of clarity feeds uncertainty, which itself undermines investment appetites and decision making,” Lagarde told the newspaper. In a separate interview with Agence France Presse, Lagarde said Brexit was unlikely to cause a world recession, adding that the immediate effects would hurt the UK, with some spillover to the euro area. She told AFP that proposals in Britain to cut corporate tax rates to 15 percent from 20 percent to counter the damage caused by the UK’s EU divorce was a “race to the bottom” that would hurt other economies. | 1 |
United States By ORIENTAL REVIEW
The outcome of the 2016 presidential election will show that the American political system – as we have known it – will apparently cease to exist. Trump is nothing like those Republican pawns who, along with the puppets of the Democratic party, have spent the last 40 years erecting the facade of American democracy. It really looks like he is ready to make good on the threat he made even prior to the Republican National Convention – to send millions of his supporters into the streets.
Today Trump represents an entirely new party made up of half of the American electorate, and they are ready for action. And whatever the eventual political structure of this new model, this is what is shaping America’s present reality. Moreover, this does not seem like such a unique situation. It rather appears to be the final chapter of some ancient story, in which the convoluted plotlines finally take shape and find resolution.
The circumstances are increasingly reminiscent of 1860, when Lincoln’s election so enraged the South that those states began agitating for secession. Trump is today symbolic of a very real American tradition that during the Civil War (1860-1865) ran headlong into American revolutionary liberalism for the first time.
Right up until World War I traditional American conservatism wore the guise of “isolationism.” Prior to WWII it was known as “non-interventionism.” Afterward, that movement attempted to use Sen. Joseph McCarthy to battle the left-liberal stranglehold. And in the 1960s it became the primary target of the “counter-cultural revolution.” Richard Nixon
Its last bastion was Richard Nixon , whose fall was the result of an unprecedented attack from the left-liberal press in 1974. And this is perhaps the example against which we should compare the present-day Trump and his current fight.
And by the way, the crimes of Hillary Clinton, who has failed to protect state secrets and has repeatedly been caught lying under oath, clearly outweigh the notorious Watergate scandal that led to Nixon’s forced resignation under threat of impeachment. But the liberal American media remains silent, as if nothing has happened.
By all indications it is clear that we are standing before a truly epochal moment. But before turning to the future that might await us, let’s take a quick glance at the history of conflict between revolutionary liberalism and traditional white conservatism in the US. ***
Immediately after WWII, an attack on two fronts was launched by the party of “expansionism” (we’ll call it that). The Soviet Union and Communism were designated the number one enemy. Enemy number two (with less hype) was traditional American conservatism. The war against traditional “Americanism” was waged by several intellectual fringe groups simultaneously.
The country’s cultural and intellectual life was under the absolute control of a group known as the “ New York Intellectuals .” Literary criticism as well as all other aspects of the nation’s literary life was in the hands of this small group of literary curators who had emerged from the milieu of a Trotskyist-communist magazine known as the Partisan Review ( PR ). No one could become a professional writer in the America of the 1950s and 1960s without being carefully screened by this sect.
The foundational tenets of American political philosophy and sociology were composed by militants from the Frankfurt School , which had been established during the interwar period in Weimar Germany and which moved to the US after the National Socialists took power. Here, retraining their sights from communist to liberal, they set out to design a “theory of totalitarianism” in addition to their concept of an “authoritarian personality” – both hostile to “democracy.” Max Shachtman
The “New York Intellectuals” and representatives of the Frankfurt School became friends, and Hannah Arendt , for example, was an authoritative representative of both sects. This is where future neocons (Norman Podhoretz, Eliot A. Cohen, and Irving Kristol) gained their experience. The former leader of the Trotskyist Fourth International and godfather of the neocons, Max Shachtman , held a place of honor in the “family of intellectuals.”
The anthropological school of Franz Boas and Freudianism reigned over the worlds of psychology and sociology at that time. The Boasian approach in psychology argued that genetic, national, and racial differences between individuals were of no importance (thus the concepts of “national culture” and “national community” were meaningless).
Psychoanalysis also became fashionable, which primarily aimed to supplant traditional church institutions and become a type of quasi-religion for the middle class.
The common denominator linking all these movements was anti-fascism . Did something look fishy in this? But the problem was that the traditional values of the nation, state, and family were all labeled “fascist.” From this standpoint, any white Christian man aware of his cultural and national identity was potentially a “fascist.”
Kevin MacDonald, a professor of psychology at California State University, analyzed in detail the seizure of America’s cultural, political, and mental landscape by these “liberal sects” in his brilliant book The Culture of Critique , writing:
“The New York Intellectuals, for example, developed ties with elite universities, particularly Harvard, Columbia, the University of Chicago, and the University of California-Berkeley, while psychoanalysis and anthropology became well entrenched throughout academia.
“The moral and intellectual elite established by these movements dominated intellectual discourse during a critical period after World War II and leading into the countercultural revolution of the 1960s.”
It was precisely this intellectual milieu that spawned the countercultural revolution of the 1960s.
Riding the wave of these sentiments, the new Immigration and Nationality Act was passed in 1965, encouraging this phenomenon and facilitating the integration of immigrants into US society. The architects of the law wanted to use the celebrated melting pot to “dilute” the “potentially fascist” descendants of European immigrants by making use of new ethno-cultural elements.
The 60s revolution opened the door to the American political establishment to representatives from both wings of the expansionist “party” – the neo-liberals and the neo-conservatives.
Besieged by the left-liberal press in 1974, Richard Nixon resigned under threat of impeachment. In the same year the US Congress passed the Jackson-Vanik Amendment (drafted by Richard Perle ), which emerged as a symbol of the country’s “new political agenda” – economic war against the Soviet Union using sanctions and boycotts.
At that same time the “hippie generation” was joining the Democratic Party on the coattails of Senator George McGovern’s campaign . And that was when Bill Clinton’s smiling countenance first emerged on the US political horizon.
And the future neo-conservatives (at that time still disciples of the Democratic hawk Henry “Scoop” Jackson) began to slowly edge in the direction of the Republicans. «If there is any doubt about the power of your ideas, just look at the number of members of the Center that have been appointed to posts in this administration -especially in the Department of Defense- to dispel that doubt». Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, September 5, 2002
In 1976, Mr. Rumsfeld and his fellow neo-conservatives resurrected the Committee on the Present Danger , an inter-party club for political hawks whose goal became the launch of an all-out propaganda war against the USSR.
Former Trotskyists and followers of Max Shachtman (Kristol, Podhoretz, and Jeane Kirkpatrick) and advisers to Sen. Henry Jackson (Paul Wolfowitz, Perle, Elliott Abrams, Charles Horner, and Douglas Feith) joined Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and other “Christian” politicians with the intention of launching a “campaign to transform the world.”
This is where the neocons’ “nonpartisan ideology” originated. And eventually today’s “inalterable US government” hatched from this egg.
American politics began to acquire its current shape during the Reagan era. In economics this was seen in the policy of neoliberalism (politics waged in the interests of big financial capital) and in foreign policy – in a strategy consisting of “holy war against the forces of evil.” The Nixon-Kissinger tradition of foreign policy (which viewed the Soviet Union and China as a normal countries with which is essential to find common ground) was entirely abandoned.
The collapse of the USSR was a sign of the onset of the final phase of the “neocon revolution.” At that point their protégé, Francis Fukuyama, announced the “end of history.” ***
As the years passed, the influence of the neo-conservatives (in politics) and neoliberals (in economics) only expanded. Through all manner of committees, foundations, “think tanks,” etc., the students of Milton Friedman and Leo Strauss (from the departments of economics and political science at the University of Chicago) penetrated ever more deeply into the inner workings of the Washington power machine. The apotheosis of this expansion was the presidency of George W. Bush, during which the neocons, having seized the primary instruments of power in the White House, were able to plunge the country into the folly of a war in the Middle East.
By the end of the Bush presidency this clique was the object of universal hatred throughout the US. That’s why the middle-ground, innocuous figure of Barack Obama, a Democrat, was able to move into the White House for the next eight years. The neocons stepped down from their central rostrums of power and returned to their “influential committees.” It is likely that this election was intended to facilitate the triumphant return of the neoconservative-neoliberal paradigm all wrapped up in “new packaging.” For various reasons, the decision was made to assign this role to Hillary Clinton. But it seems that at the most critical moment the flimsy packaging ripped open …
What happened? Why is this clique’s triumphant return to power erupting in massive scandal this time around? Probably because we are living in an era during which much that was mysterious is suddenly becoming clear. Probably because Trump’s “silent majority” suddenly saw before them someone they had been waiting for for a long time – a man ready to defend their interests.
Perhaps also it is because the middle class is choking on its growing exasperation with the “elite caste” occupying its native country. And it finally became clear to the sober-minded American patriots in law enforcement that the return to power of the people responsible for the current global chaos could be a big threat to the US and rest of the world. Because, in the end, everyone has children and no one wants a new world war.
How will this new conservative revolt against the elite end? Will Trump manage to “drain the swamp of Washington, DC” as he has promised, or he will end up as the system’s next victim? Very soon we can finally get an answer to these questions. RELATED POSTS | 1 |
Mocking a liberal snowflake is never a good idea..CNN severed ties with Jeffrey Lord on Thursday, hours after he ignited controversy by tweeting the words Sieg Heil! at a prominent liberal activist.A CNN spokesman said: Nazi salutes are indefensible. Jeffrey Lord is no longer with the network. The problem is that Lord was responding to the Stazi tactics of the speech police known as Media Matters. Lord said his tweet was misunderstood. He said he was mocking fascists, not acting like one. I love CNN, but I feel they are caving to bullies here, he said in a telephone interview shortly after the network s decision was announced.Lord said his contract was set to expire at the end of the year. He said he greatly respected CNN management despite disagreeing with the decision.We re guessing the liberal is unable to tell the difference between a mocking gesture and a serious one | 0 |
No matter how much pressure President Obama and Democrats try to apply, McConnell’s allies say the Senate majority leader will never agree to hold hearings on the nomination of Merrick Garland, a federal appeals court judge, to succeed Antonin Scalia as a Supreme Court justice.
Even Republicans who disagree with him think that McConnell (R-Ky.) will not retreat from that defiant stance. “I don’t see the majority leader changing his mind on this issue. He believes strongly that this should be a decision made by the next president,” said Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), one of two Republicans to call for hearings on Garland.
Since Scalia’s death, and McConnell’s pronouncement hours later, Democrats have been stunned by the senator’s determined position not to consider any nominee — and his flat-out refusal to extend the traditional courtesy of meeting with the nominee.
They have long viewed McConnell as purely a political tactician who always does what is best for his party’s chances at controlling the Senate. With Garland’s introduction, Democrats began pillorying Republican incumbents for rejecting any Obama choice out of hand just because there is an election eight months away.
[GOP leaders to give Garland the cold shoulder during visit today]
By Wednesday afternoon, a few hours after Obama introduced Garland as his pick, Democrats asserted that the ground had shifted after several Republicans signaled they would at least meet with the nominee.
“The ice is cracking,” Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said three hours after the Rose Garden ceremony. “You’ve got a whole number of Republicans who are now willing to sit down and talk to the nominee, and I think given how strong a nominee it is, more ice is going to crack soon.”
For Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), the Garland nomination fight could be his last big battle before he retires at the end of the year. Reid on Wednesday relaunched the Democrats’ “McConnell Backdown Watch” in news releases and on social media.
But those who know McConnell say his strategy is the synthesis of two of his lifelong, overlapping interests: political machinations of the Senate in general and the Supreme Court confirmation process in particular.
On Wednesday, the GOP leader delivered a speech at a lunchtime gathering of social conservatives. The Weyrich Lunch, named for the late Paul Weyrich, an original leader of the Christian conservative movement, draws leaders of top religious organization who often use the meeting to criticize McConnell for what they see as his traditional establishment views.
But in a random quirk of the schedule, McConnell’s once-a-year appearance turned into a rally-the-troops event Wednesday to deny Obama the chance to replace Scalia, who was an iconic figure among movement conservatives.
The presidential environment, with front-runner Donald Trump dominating the process, has left many social conservatives fearful that their standard-bearer won’t share their values. Republicans think that the Scalia vacancy will at least encourage the religious voters to show up in November — even if it’s just to save the Senate GOP majority as a check against the possibility that Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton wins and gets the opportunity to appoint more liberals to the Supreme Court.
[The Fix: What picking a white, male, moderate Harvard grad says about Obama’s legacy]
GOP advisers agree that public and private polling shows a 2-to-1 ratio in favor of holding hearings and possible votes on the Garland nomination. But at the same time, they say that the intensity level on this issue is low and that voters are focused on the economy and national security as the most critical issues. The backlash from conservative voters, Republicans say, would be far worse than the small gain from going through the process with the nomination.
So far, endangered Republican incumbents remain on board.
“I’m hearing a lot back home about this, from both sides. I mean, the intensity level is high on the Republican side, too,” said Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who visited seven counties over the past week and heard “intense” views from liberals and conservatives. “What I hear is both sides expressing their strong views.”
Schumer predicted that McConnell is making a temporary play to appease conservatives. “He’s probably better off first making the stand and then having to buckle to public pressure than not making the stand,” he said.
But that also neglects McConnell’s own fascination with the Supreme Court since his stint as a staffer for Sen. Marlow Cook (R-Ky.), who appointed a 27-year-old McConnell as his point man for several of President Richard M. Nixon’s Supreme Court nominations.
Cook served as Nixon’s lead defender of Clement Haynsworth, whose nomination was blocked in November 1969 amid questions about whether he should have recused himself in cases involving his stock holdings. Nixon’s next nominee also failed to make it past the Senate.
Cook encouraged McConnell to write a piece for the Kentucky Law Journal soon after those nominations. The young Senate legislative aide wrote that too often senators hid behind false attacks on trumped-up charges when their real motive was simply the political blockade of an opposing president’s choice.
“Senators sought to hide their political objections beneath a veil of charges about fitness, ethics and other professional qualifications,” McConnell wrote.
Political considerations, he said in the paper, should not disqualify a nominee.
Now, 45 years later, McConnell has reversed that position but has at least made clear the rationale for not even holding a hearing: the next election.
“This person will not be confirmed,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said. “So there’s no reason going through some motions and pretending like it’s going to happen, because it’s not going to happen.” | 0 |
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe s new president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, on Tuesday announced a three-month amnesty window for the return of public funds illegally stashed abroad by individuals and companies. Upon the expiry of the amnesty at end of February next year, the government will arrest and prosecute those who have failed to comply, Mnangagwa said in a statement. Mnangagwa was sworn-in as president on Friday and promised to tackle corruption, which had become endemic under former president Robert Mugabe s 37-year rule. Those affected are thus encouraged to take advantage of the three-month moratorium to return the illegally externalized funds and assets in order to avoid the pain and ignominy of being visited by the long arm of the law, Mnangagwa said. Zimbabwe s new president is under pressure to deliver, especially on the economy, which is in the grip of severe foreign currency shortages that have seen banks failing to give cash to customers. Mnangagwa told heads of government ministries on Tuesday that he was putting together a leaner government, which would see the merging of some departments to enhance efficiency. Critics say Zimbabwe has a bloated civil service, which chews more than 90 percent of the national budget. Mnangagwa, however, said only workers of retirement age would be laid off. He promised to rebuild the economy and improve the livelihoods of Zimbabweans. My government will have no tolerance for bureaucratic slothfulness, which is quick to brandish procedures as an excuse for stalling service delivery to citizens, investors and other stakeholders, Mnangagwa said in a statement read to the government officials. After recovering under a unity government between the ruling ZANU-PF and the opposition between 2009 and 2012, the southern African nation s economy has unraveled with the unemployment rate above 90 percent. Mnangagwa is expected to announce a cabinet this week, with all eyes on whether he breaks with the past and names a broad-based government or selects old guard figures from Mugabe s era. An official at parliament said Mnangagwa had asked for curriculum vitaes of ZANU-PF legislators on Tuesday as he moves to put the new cabinet in place. Meanwhile, deputy parliament speaker Mabel Chinomona told the house that she had been informed by ZANU-PF that the party had recalled five legislators from parliament, indicating the five had been dismissed as ZANU-PF lawmakers. The members, all linked to the G40 group that supported Mugabe s wife Grace, include former ministers Savior Kasukuwere, Jonathan Moyo and Ignatius Chombo, who is facing corruption charges in court. | 0 |
OTTAWA (Reuters) - A planned meeting of foreign ministers to discuss the North Korean crisis is not scheduled to take place before the Christmas break in late December, a Canadian official said on Tuesday. Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland announced Canada would co-host the meeting with the United States on Canadian soil. At least a dozen foreign ministers will be involved, said the official, who asked to remain anonymous given the sensitivity of the situation. U.S Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, condemning a North Korean missile test earlier in the day, said the meeting would include South Korea, Japan and other affected nations, to discuss how the global community can counter North Korea s threat to international peace. Freeland had been discussing North Korea with counterparts in recent months, including those from the United States, South Korea, Japan, Australia and China, said the Canadian official. Canada was a good choice to host a meeting because it was less directly involved in the crisis than the United States, Japan, South Korea or China, said the official. There are fewer implications to us convening a constructive conversation, added the official, saying no decisions on a venue or who would be invited had been made. | 1 |
When it comes to the safety of our drinking water that comes out of our taps, we are left to trust those who are elected to keep us safe and work in our best interests. However, what s been happening in Flint, Michigan over the past few years is criminal. Flint s city manager was held accountable to Gov. Rick Snyder (R) alone. They, alongside other officials denied that there was lead contamination in the Flint s water.As Rachel Maddow reported: For more than 18 months, state and local government officials ignored irrefutable evidence that the water pumped from the Flint River exposed [residents] to extreme toxicity, the complaint reads. The deliberately false denials about the safety of the Flint River water was as deadly as it was arrogant. Calling officials conduct so egregious and so outrageous that it shocks the conscience, the complaint cites the specific experiences of a few plaintiffs and their families, all of whom allege they have been challenged by similar health ailments since high levels of lead and copper entered their bloodstreams.These conditions include skin lesions, hair loss, chemical-induced hypertension, vision loss and depression. Of the four families described in the complaint, two had ceased to drink Flint water after a certain point and used it only for washing and cooking but still said they were exposed to many of the same ill effects. Finally admitting to the toxicity in Flint, Snyder declared a state of emergency and apologized, but for many it is too late. The U.S. Justice Department has now opened an investigation into how things could have gone so devastatingly wrong for so long. This is following an EPA investigation that began last November.Needless to say, people are utterly outraged, and justifiably so.Taking to Twitter, legendary artist Cher called Snyder out by name and asked that he be jailed. Then going a step further, called for the death penalty. She said: Gov. of Michigan is a murderer. HE made the decision to give people poison water, and now must sign disaster bill. Children will never recover. #jailforRick WTF is going on with power. Mad, greed driven, killer. Incompetent politicians? They are criminals! Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan. #firingsquadworksforme GOV.Of MICHIGAN IS A MURDERER?HE Made Decision 2GAVE ppl POISON WATER,&NOW MUST SIGN DISASTER BILL.CHILDREN WILL"NEVER"RECOVER? #JAILFORRICK Cher (@cher) January 6, 2016WTF IS GOING ON W/POWER MAD,GREED DRIVEN,KILLER, INCOMPETENT,POLITICIANS?THEY R CRIMNALS GOV.RICK SNYDER OF MICH. #FIRINGSQUADWORKSFORME Cher (@cher) January 6, 2016And while asking for a firing squad could seem a bit over the line, the passion behind her tweets is palpable. People are upset, and have every right to be outraged. Citizens were poisoned. CHILDREN were poisoned, and people need to be held accountable. It will be interesting to see if Snyder himself will resign and face trial. This criminal behavior needs to be accounted for.Featured image: YouTube/Flickr/Twitter | 0 |
Donald Trump and his campaign have been scrambling to do damage control after his multiple attacks on the Khans, Gold Star parents whose Muslim son died fighting for his country. One of Trump s latest pathetic attempts to recover was to meet with Gold Star families so he could brag about it later.But MSNBC s Mika Brzezinski wasn t impressed, and was able to see right through Trump s act. In a segment about Trump s latest attempt to fool America, she had a direct message for Trump supporters: wake the f*** up. Brzezinski insisted that Trump s entire campaign was a scam and his meeting with these families was no different Trump was just trying to fool gullible Americans into believing that he cares about things other than himself.Visibly upset that a person running for president would do something so heartless and take advantage of trusting Americans this way, the MSNBC host said: I m just trying to because, look, Trump supporters, people who support Donald Trump, are people who should be respected for how they feel. Brzezinski became emotional several times while trying to beg Trump s supporters to be more critical. As her voice cracked with emotion, she continued: But I worry that they don t understand that they re being scammed, and they re being scammed by somebody who s really good at it, so it s not like, you know, it s their fault. But I will say that it s a scam, what Trump is selling. Remarking on just how heartless Trump s attacks had been on the Khans, Brzezinski urged voters not to be fooled. Talking to Gold Star families after the biggest gaffe in probably presidential politics, candidacy s history, what he did with the Khans he s just trying to clean up. I mean, do you want someone who speaks from the heart and says nothing or says anything, or do you want someone who speaks from the heart and has some principle behind it and sticks to his word? This is a scam, and it seems like he has a lot of followers. You can watch Brzezinski make her emotional plea below:Trump meets with Gold Star families @morningmika: It s a scam, what Trump is selling https://t.co/aFouAvW80u Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) August 4, 2016Featured image is a screenshot | 0 |
SYDNEY (Reuters) - The resurgence of Australian nationalist politics has been halted at a state election in coal-rich Queensland, with Pauline Hanson s One Nation party at risk of being almost completely wiped from the state assembly. Australia s center-left Labor party is leading in the tight race after three-quarters of votes were counted following Saturday s poll, while Hanson s party has yet to confirm victory in a single seat. The official result may not be known for several days although political analysts believe Labor will win the 47 seats it needs to govern in Queensland 93-seat assembly, a result that would allow it to form a government without support from independents or minor parties. I am confident of a Labor majority, Queensland s Labor Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk told reporters on Sunday. Hanson, a senator in the federal parliament, had anticipated a surge in support in her electoral heartland, to give momentum to the resurgence her anti-immigration, populist party enjoyed in the national election last year. But despite attracting support from around 14 percent of voters, One Nation has not recorded decisive victories in individual seats. It is tipped to win just one seat in state parliament, according to analysis by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). Griffith University political analyst Paul Williams said despite a lack of seats, Hanson s party had likely polled higher than 20 per cent in some regional seats. All the anger, the disenchantment, the bitterness, the resentment to the major parties and elites, it s still as strong as it was 12 months ago, he told Reuters by telephone on Sunday. The election has been held in one of Australia s powerhouse mining states with debate over a A$16.5 billion ($12.6 billion) coal mine, rail and port project proposed by Indian energy giant Adani Enterprises dominating much of the campaign. While both major parties support the Queensland resources project, Labor has vowed to veto a near billion-dollar concessional loan Adani has asked Australia to provide for the proposed rail line, should it win government. The conservative opposition Liberal National Party, which the ABC forecasts will win 41 seats, supports the government loan. Hanson had been hoping her party would hold the balance-of-power in Queensland, and with it the ability to decide who the next premier would be. As the results rolled in late on Saturday, she told reporters in Buderim, an urban center near Queensland s coast, that while disappointed with some of the emerging numbers, the fight would go on. I think this is a clear indication that One Nation is not going anywhere, we are going to be around for a while yet, Hanson said. | 1 |
LAS VEGAS - As Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump prepared to go head-to-head with Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in their third and final debate in Las Vegas on Wednesday, hundreds of hospitality workers and protesters gathered outside the hotel Trump co-owns near the Las Vegas Strip. Demonstrators waved signs and banners next to what organizers called a “wall” of taco trucks. That was a reference to Trump’s proposal to build a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico, as well as a riff on comments by Trump supporter Marco Gutierrez who said that without action on immigration reform, “You’re going to have taco trucks on every corner.” “We have fought for our rights and we don’t want Donald Trump to take them away from us,” said Las Vegas resident Miguel Faria. “If this man gets the presidency then everything will be ruined.” Several protesters wore sashes printed with the phrases “Miss Piggy” and “Miss Housekeeping,” using the names that Clinton has said Trump called a former beauty queen who had gained weight and who was Latina. The protest was organized by the Culinary Union, which represents about 57,000 workers in Nevada, the majority of whom are Latino. Luis Hernandez, a musician with the norteño band “Los Tigres del Norte,” encouraged Latino voters to head to the polls on Nov. 8. “We can’t just go on hoping someone will vote on our behalf,” he told Reuters. “We need to go out and vote because the Hispanic vote is going to make the difference in these elections.” Among the speakers at the protest was civil rights leader the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who said he hoped the candidates would stick to policies at Wednesday’s debate, instead of attacking each other. “We all as Americans live under one big tent. Hillary represents that higher ground. I hope that tonight they will not wallow in snake politics but will fly like eagles and take us all to higher ground,” Jackson told Reuters. According to Bethany Khan, the Culinary Union’s communications director, workers at the Trump International Hotel voted to unionize in December 2015 but still do not have a contract. Some protesters blamed that on Trump, who owns 50 percent of the property. “He says he’s the greatest negotiator but he’s not coming to the table to support the workers that give him money and make a profit for him,” said Maria Teresa Liedermann. | 0 |
Berkeley Protesters Demanding Segregation Force White Students to Cross Creek in Woods to Go to Class Oct 28, 2016 Previous post
It wasn’t long ago that stories of student protests, and their demands for college “safe spaces,” dominated media headlines.
While some of that fervor seems to have died down, the outrage at University of California, Berkeley appears to be as strong as ever.
Over the weekend, Berkeley students staged a days-long protest demanding that they be given additional “spaces” on campus — and even took to specifically targeting people based solely on the color of their skin. | 1 |
The officials decision to keep information cite deep mistrust Judge Napolitano has a great solution QUIT! The people who re loyal to Barak Obama need to go! | 0 |
The only reality show Donald Trump should have ever been featured in is The Biggest Loser because he just got his ass handed to him in court.Two years ago, Trump National Doral Miami golf resort signed a contract worth $200,000 for a local business called The Paint Spot to provide paint used to renovate the golf course.Well, guess who tried to stiff The Paint Spot of the final $34,863 payment in the deal?Yeah, that would be Republican nominee Donald J. Trump.Trump and his company refused to honor the contract by not paying the final payment, saying that they ve paid enough for the paint. In other words, Trump negotiated a deal that ended up costing him more in the end, just like the kinds of deals he wants to negotiate for America with the rest of the world.Anyway, Paint Spot owner Juan Carlos Enriquez filed suit against Trump in court, and Judge Jorge Cueto just slapped Trump and his company with a $300,000 hit to cover The Paint Shop s attorney and court fees, nearly ten times more money than the $34,863 owed. And Trump STILL hasn t paid that debt, so how are we supposed to trust him to pay down the debt of en entire nation if he can t meet his own obligations? I m happy I have a judgment, Enriquez told the Miami Herald. But he [Trump] hasn t paid yet. You know how he says he ll surround himself with the greatest people if he is president? In this case, he might not be surrounded by the right people. This isn t even the first fine Trump has been ordered to pay this month.On the same day as his coronation as the Republican Party nominee last week, the National Labor Relations Board slapped Trump with an $11,200 fine for treating employees like shit because they tried to join a labor union.As it turns out, one employee was wrongfully fired and the other was retaliated against by denying them the promotion they had earned.For someone who claims to be the law and order candidate, Trump sure does break the law a lot.Featured Image: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images | 0 |
President Donald Trump has secured the release of an American citizen held in an Egyptian jail for three years, her Egyptian husband, and four fellow charity workers jailed with her. [“We are very happy to have Aya back home, and it’s a great honor to have her in the Oval Office,” Trump said on Friday during the meeting at the White House. Trump arranged for a government aircraft to transport Aya Hijazi, 30, and her husband, Mohamed Hassanein, back to the United States, with the couple and family arriving late on Thursday. “We’re very grateful that President Trump personally engaged with the issue,” Aya’s brother Basel Hijazi said in a telephone interview while onboard the plane. “Working closely with the Trump administration was very important for my family at this critical time. “It let us be reunited as a family,” Hijazi said. “We’re so grateful. ” Aya Hijazi grew up in Falls Church, Virgina, and is a graduate of George Mason University. Rather than spending money on a lavish wedding, the couple used their money to launch the Belady Foundation to help children who live on the streets in Cairo, human rights advocates wrote in a piece published by The Huffington Post. Instead, the couple was arrested, and months later, they were told they had been charged with sexually assaulting the children in their care. A hearing was delayed seven times during the course of three years. “Hijazi brought the best of her American education and values to Egypt in an attempt to make the world a better place,” Kerry Kennedy, president of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights (RFKHR) and Wade McMullen, RFKHR attorney, wrote in the Huff Po. “She faced the same political repression many defenders of human rights face,” they wrote. “Her vindication is proof that even small efforts to improve our world can create ripples that shake even the most entrenched authoritarian governments. ” “The couple and their had been incarcerated since May 1, 2014, on child abuse and trafficking charges that were widely dismissed by human rights workers and U. S. officials as false,” the Associated Press (AP) reported on Wednesday. “Virtually no evidence was ever presented against them, and for nearly three years they were held as hearings were inexplicably postponed and trial dates canceled. ” The Obama administration, members of Congress, and human rights groups had failed to secure Aya’s release, in part because former President Barack Obama had shunned President Abdel Fattah while Trump established a relationship with him, including issuing the first invitation to the White House. “Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker ( ) who said he recently advocated for Hijazi’s release in his own talks with Sisi and was briefed on the latest negotiations, said Trump ‘handled it the way things like this should be handled,’” the AP reported. | 0 |
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Moscow is deeply concerned by the escalation of tension on the Korean peninsula caused by the continued war of words between the United States and North Korea, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday. “Moscow is convinced that there is no alternative to a political and diplomatic settlement of the North Korean problem,” he told a conference call with reporters. He said the situation was being further aggravated by “the swapping of silly statements full of threats”. The Kremlin was reacting to U.S. President Donald Trump’s statement in which he vowed to destroy North Korea, leading the reclusive nation to declare that it might test a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific Ocean. | 1 |
University trustees, known as the Yale Corporation, voted in favor of the renaming on Friday, reversing a decision last year to keep the name. Keeping the name had been defended as a way to confront rather than paper over the legacy of slavery.The change will go into effect in time for the 2017-2018 academic year. John C. Calhoun s legacy as a white supremacist and a national leader who passionately promoted slavery as a positive good fundamentally conflicts with Yale s mission and values, President Peter Salovey said in a message sent to the Yale community on Saturday. He said depictions in the college celebrating plantations and the Old South suggest that Calhoun was honored in part because of his support for slavery, not in spite of it.Yale is among a number of colleges that have grappled with how to honor their histories without offending modern sensibilities. Vanderbilt University last year said it would pay $1.2 million to remove the word Confederate from a residence hall s facade, while Princeton University said it would keep Woodrow Wilson s name on its school of public and international affairs and a residential college, while increasing discussion of the former president s support of segregation. WSJIf Yale is so concerned about promoting diversity and working to erase any signs of slavery, why not rename the Calhoun College with their most famous black alumni, US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas? The tradition at Yale has been to name colleges after prominent, deceased, alumni, and ones that have contributed somehow to the human race. Morse College, for instance, is named after Samuel Morse, of the eponymous Morse Code.Yale will feel immense pressure to rename Calhoun for a minority figure, but who? Of Yale s deceased minority alumni, no one leaps to mind. Someone suggested Levi Jackson, which I thought was a nice idea, but Jackson isn t well known outside Yale circles, and I doubt any of today s students have any idea who he is.It seems likely Yale might jettison the being dead requirement. If that turns out to be the case, how about Clarence Thomas? He is easily Yale s most prominent black alum, even if he wasn t an undergrad.I am joking of course. While I would be proud if this came about, the left would sooner burn Calhoun to the ground than let it be named for a black conservative, only going to show that this isn t about race, it s about power and politics.One other thought: Elihu Yale was apparently a slave trader, among other things. How soon before the activists set there sights on renaming the entire university? The Naked Dollar | 1 |
Here s what we ve got with the new e-mails and it s a doozy:The internet is blowing up over a document regarding Supreme Court Justice Scalia.A new theory has emerged that Hillary Clinton and her lackeys are linked to Justice Scalia s death.TMN Today reported:The theory comes from a WikiLeaks email from Hillary s Chairman John Podesta to DC lobbyist Steve Elmendorf. Elmendorf was also the former chief of staff to Democratic leader Dick Gephardt.Podesta writes, Didn t think wet works meant pool parties at the Vineyard. Elmendrof responds, I am all in Sounds like it will be a bad nite , we all need to buckle up and double down The theory goes that Podesta s use of wet work implies an assassination. And the references to pool and Vineyard refer to the Cibolo Creek Ranch where Scalia s body was found. The Ranch does have a pool and it is believed that a vineyard is just down the road. The email was also written just four days before Scalia was found dead on February 13, 2016.Via: GP | 0 |
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea approved a plan on Thursday to send $8 million worth of aid to North Korea, as China warned the crisis on the Korean peninsula was getting more serious by the day and the war of words between Pyongyang and Washington continued. North Korea s foreign minister likened U.S. President Donald Trump to a barking dog on Thursday, after Trump warned he would totally destroy the North if it threatened the United States and its allies. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the situation on the Korean peninsula was getting more serious by the day and could not be allowed to spin out of control. We call on all parties to be calmer than calm and not let the situation escalate out of control, Wang said, according to a report from the state-run China News Service on Thursday. Meeting separately with his South Korean counterpart, Kang Kyung-wha, Wang reiterated a call for South Korea to remove the U.S.-built THAAD anti-missile system, which China says is a threat to its own security. China hopes South Korea will make efforts to reduce tension, a report on China s official Xinhua news agency quoted Wang as saying. The decision to send aid to North Korea was not popular in South Korea, hitting President Moon Jae-in s approval rating. It also raised concerns in Japan and the United States, and followed new U.N. sanctions against North Korea over its sixth nuclear test earlier this month. The South s Unification Ministry said its aid policy remained unaffected by geopolitical tensions with the North. The exact timing of when the aid would be sent, as well as its size, would be confirmed later, the ministry said in a statement. The South said it aimed to send $4.5 million worth of nutritional products for children and pregnant women through the World Food Programme and $3.5 million worth of vaccines and medicinal treatments through UNICEF. We have consistently said we would pursue humanitarian aid for North Korea in consideration of the poor conditions children and pregnant women are in there, apart from political issues, said Unification Minister Cho Myong-gyon. UNICEF s regional director for East Asia and the Pacific Karin Hulshof said in a statement before the decision the problems North Korean children face are all too real . Today, we estimate that around 200,000 children are affected by acute malnutrition, heightening their risk of death and increasing rates of stunting, Hulshof said. Food and essential medicines and equipment to treat young children are in short supply, she said. The last time the South had sent aid to the North was in December 2015 through the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) under ex-president Park Geun-hye. South Korea s efforts aimed at fresh aid for North Korea dragged down Moon s approval rating. Realmeter, a South Korean polling organization, said on Thursday Moon s approval rating stood at 65.7 percent, weakening for a fourth straight month. Although the approval rate is still high, those surveyed said Moon had fallen out of favor due to North Korea s continued provocations and the government s decision to consider sending aid to North Korea, Realmeter said. Moon will meet Japan s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Trump later on Thursday on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, where North Korea was expected to be the core agenda item. In an address on Tuesday, Trump escalated his standoff with North Korea over its nuclear challenge, threatening to totally destroy the country of 26 million people if the North threatened the United States and its allies. Trump also mocked its leader, Kim Jong Un, calling him a rocket man . North Korea s Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho called Trump s comments the sound of a dog barking . There is a saying that goes: Even when dogs bark, the parade goes on , Ri said in televised remarks to reporters in front of a hotel near the U.N. headquarters in New York. If (Trump) was thinking about surprising us with dog-barking sounds then he is clearly dreaming, he said. Asked by reporters what he thought of Trump calling North Korean leader Kim Jong Un rocket man , Ri quipped: I feel sorry for his aides. North Korea conducted its sixth and largest nuclear test on Sept. 3 and has launched numerous missiles this year, including two intercontinental ballistic missiles and two other rockets that flew over Japan. Such provocations have sparked strong disapproval from the international community, especially from the United States and Japan. | 1 |
These videos, by James O Keefe and friends at Project Veritas bust the corrupt nature of Hillary Clinton s campaign, the Democratic Party and the underbelly of their operations wide open. James O Keefe has taken a sledge hammer to this well-organized criminal machine. If American voters are not shocked to the core by the level of corruption used to elect Hillary, they no longer have a conscience . Watch Bob Creamer admit to undercover agent for Project Veritas that Obama is trying to make America more like GUN-FREE Britain at the 15 min. mark.Bob Creamer on Obama: He s a pro I do a lot of work with the White House on their issues, helping to run issue campaigns that they ve been involved in like immigration reform campaigns, for the health care bill, for the ah to try to make America more like Britain on Gun issues. In the effort to prove the credibility of the undercover donor featured in the videos and to keep the investigation going, Project Veritas Action made the decision to donate twenty thousand dollars to Robert Creamer s effort. Project Veritas Action had determined that the benefit of this investigation outweighed the cost. And it did. In an unexpected twist, AUFC president Brad Woodhouse, the recipient of the $20,000, heard that Project Veritas Action was releasing undercover videos exposing AUFC s activities. He told a journalist that AUFC was going to return the twenty thousand dollars. He said it was because they were concerned that it might have been an illegal foreign donation. Project Veritas Action was pleased but wondered why that hadn t been a problem for the month that they had the money.One of the key figures in O Keefe s report is convicted felon and husband of Rep. Jan Schakowsky ( D-IL), Robert Creamer who oversaw a check-kiting scheme so elaborate that his employees followed a written manual complete with detailed instructions on when and where to float checks totaling millions of dollars.As it turns out, convicted felon Robert Creamer was a frequent visitor of the White House. Between 11/21/2009 and 6/24/2016, Robert Creamer appears to have visited the White House 342 times, 340 times as Robert Creamer and twice as Bob Creamer . He logged in times and was either a guest of Barack Obama or his lovely wife Michelle. One can only wonder what business Michelle had with this criminal. Hmmm | 0 |
The National Fraternal Order of Police knows exactly what the President-elect s values are and knows it s a massive advantage in its quest to return America to a less progressive time.With full knowledge that Donald Trump does not give a damn about minorities and is in full support of profiling African Americans and Hispanics, the National Fraternal Order of Police has called on Trump to reverse or amend the broad, Bush-era ban on racial profiling. The ban on racial profiling has been around since 2003, when President George W. Bush created guidelines that prevented federal agents from factoring race or ethnicity in investigations. Now, the Fraternal Order of Police is acting to reverse that ban, as its website states that racial profiling is a statistical disparity and that the current ban burdens law enforcement agency to somehow prove itself innocent of engaging in the unlawful use of race in its procedures and practices. The organization also doesn t like that the ban is meant to protect racial and ethnic minorities, which they feel is excluding members of other races. While the proposed lifting of the ban is absolutely ridiculous, it becomes truly scary when you consider that Trump himself has implied that he is in favor of racial profiling. It was only a few months ago, in September, when Trump said that police forces needed more leniency when it comes to investigating people based on their race. Trump said: 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.They see somebody that s suspicious, they will profile. 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. Apparently, Trump is oblivious to the fact that there have been various studies proving that racial profiling is ineffective and may actually be counterproductive. Of course, the National Fraternal Order of Police has accurately identified Trump as their guy. They not only supported him during his campaign, but noted his real commitment to law enforcement. The organization s president, Chuck Canterbury, said: Mr. Trump, however, has seriously looked at the issues facing law enforcement today. He understands and supports our priorities and our members believe he will make America safe again. Featured image via Drew Angerer / Getty Images | 0 |
Some are saying that Trump has not botched the relief effort in Puerto Rico (Newsflash: He s botched it horribly), but even if that were true, he s doing worse than botching the PR for it. Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico on Sept. 20. On the 22nd, he decided to go golfing for four days, and rage-tweeted at the NFL the whole time. Then he rage-tweeted at the ingrates in Puerto Rico who aren t showing him the proper appreciation for what he s not doing. Today, he was at the Presidents Cup golf tournament, avoiding real work and participating in the trophy presentation instead.And while he was there, he decided to dedicate the trophy to the victims of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria. According to Steve Kopack of CNBC, Trump said that conditions in Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico are really under control, and that he was dedicating the trophy to victims of storms:For those asking, President Trump was speaking on @GolfChannel s coverage of the Presidents Cup trophy presentation. Steve Kopack (@SteveKopack) October 1, 2017Here are his own words: On behalf of all of the people of Texas, and all of the people if you look today and see what is happening, how horrible it is but we have it under really great control Puerto Rico and the people of Florida who have really suffered over this last short period of time with the hurricanes, I want to just remember them.And we re going to dedicate this trophy to all of those people that went through so much that we love a part of our great state, really part of our great nation. Because a trophy is seriously what they need right now. Forget disaster relief funds, forget personnel and equipment. Forget food, water and medicine. Forget restoring electricity and communications. What they really need a participation trophy, which is what this amounts to for all the good it ll do.The relief effort is disastrously inadequate in Puerto Rico, where people are starting to suffer from Dengue fever, viral conjunctivitis and Zika. They re at increasing risk for cholera due to the lack of clean drinking water. In fact, the number of people without access to clean drinking water has shot from 44 percent to 55 percent between Wednesday and yesterday, and will continue to rise until we actually get our butts moving with the relief effort there.Furthermore, the contaminated floodwaters are putting Puerto Ricans at risk for hepatitis A, meningitis and salmonella, even if they don t drink it.This isn t just a meaningless gesture, it s damned insulting. You don t dedicate a goddamn trophy, presented at a tournament full of wealthy people who are safe in their well-moneyed cocoons, to hurricane victims. You just don t. It wouldn t be surprising to start hearing more outcry from homeless, sick, and suffering Puerto Ricans people who are already angry at the lack of response from Trump s administration and his characterization of them as lazy all over Twitter.Featured image via Elsa/Getty Images | 1 |
Can I finally admit that my role model was a sitcom character? Mary Richards — played to perfection by the beloved Mary Tyler Moore — was more than a role model, she was a template. Even in fashion and home décor — my choices mimicked hers. Mary Tyler Moore had shown up just when everything about women’s lives was about to change. Her show debuted in 1970, when I was 19, still in college and not imagining a career in television — or a career in anything. But two years after Mary first joyfully threw her tam hat up in the air and joined in Minneapolis, I began my television career in a city also ending in ’apolis. That part is coincidental, of course — but my home? Mary lived in a studio apartment with a pullout sofa bed, and not coincidentally so did I. And if my apartment was not quite so charming, it wasn’t for lack of copying. I didn’t yet have a style of my own, so whenever possible I borrowed Mary’s. A few years later, when to outward appearances, I was making it on my own, I was on the cover of Chicago Tribune magazine holding a find — a large gold number “5” — for Channel 5, my new broadcast home. But in truth, the inspiration was Mary. She had a big “M. ” It was affixed to the wall, part of the furniture, just like her highboy chest of drawers. I also had one of those. In Chicago, I moved up into a condo in a high rise. Mary had also moved out of her studio and into a condo where she gives herself a housewarming. Her parties — this was a running gag — were always dull. Sitting alone on the floor after her last guest has left, she surveys her modern new home and says, “I HATE IT. ” I loved her for that. The ’70s were my formative years, and when my career got way out ahead of me, I still had Mary to fill in some gaps. We viewers were never given a peek inside her closet, but Mary would walk out of it in one cute outfit after another usually a smart knit. I gravitated in that direction, too — if not with the same effect. For my farewell show in Chicago, on the eve of my debut on the “Today” show, I chose a knit ensemble in alternating wide stripes of brown, orange and white — possibly inspired by the colorations of a clown fish. I was thinking of Mary. Not long after, Tom Brokaw looked at me across the anchor desk one morning and said, “Burn the dress. ” Not Mary’s fault. I’m sometimes described as a “pioneer” in broadcast journalism — which is preposterous. The chair I settled into in 1976 had been recently vacated by the real thing, Barbara Walters. Barbara was indisputably the woman in television news at that time, but she was not the best known or most beloved. That distinction belonged to “Mary. ” “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” started several years before two words, “and women,” were inserted into an F. C. C. affirmative action clause pertaining to television station hiring. That might have helped women like me get a job, but Mary Richards may already have opened as many doors she had made a woman in the newsroom seem normal. Mary was ahead of her time, but not too far. She was not superwoman she was someone you could be. She was someone you wanted to be. Mary was plucky, but not driven. When starting a new life in Minneapolis, she was just looking for a job, not a career. And though uncommonly beautiful, Mary made it O. K. to be dateless on a Saturday night — which I often was. (I wasn’t alone. On Saturday nights, as Oprah recalled, she would put the conditioner in her hair during “The Bob Newhart Show” and rinse it out before “Mary. ”) Mary Tyler Moore, was “our Mary. ” She was the right woman at the right time. And I loved her for it. | 0 |
Soros Paid Al Gore MILLIONS to Push ‘Aggressive US Action’ on Global Warming Liberal billionaire George Soros gave former Vice President Al Gore’s environmental group millions o... Print Email http://humansarefree.com/2016/11/soros-paid-al-gore-millions-to-push.html Liberal billionaire George Soros gave former Vice President Al Gore’s environmental group millions of dollars over three years to create a “political space for aggressive U.S. action” on global warming, according to leaked documents. A document published by DC Leaks shows Soros, a Hungarian-born liberal financier, wanted his nonprofit Open Society Institute (OSI) to do more to support global warming policies in the U.S. That included budgeting $10 million in annual support to Gore’s climate group over three years.“U.S. Programs Global Warming Grants U.S. Programs became engaged on the global warming issue about four years ago, at George Soros’s suggestion,” reads a leaked OSI memo.“There has been a budget of $11 million for global warming grants in the U.S. Programs budget for the last several years,” the memo reads. “This budget item captures George Soros’s commitment of $10 million per year for three years to Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection, which conducts public education on the climate issue in pursuit of creating political space for aggressive U.S. action in line with what scientists say is necessary to put our nation on a path to reducing its outsize carbon dioxide emissions.”It’s unclear what year the memo was sent, but the Gore co-founded Alliance for Climate Protection (ACP) was established in 2006 and lasted until it became The Climate Reality Project in July 2011. In 2008, the Alliance launched a $300 million campaign to encourage “Americans to push for aggressive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions,” The Washington Post reported . Global Warming is NOT caused by humans: 10 Prominent Scientists Refuting 'Manmade Global Warming' with Solid Research ACP got $10 million from the Open Society Institute (OSI) in 2008, according to the nonprofit’s tax filings. OSI handed over another $5 million to ACP in 2009, according to tax filings. The investigative reporting group ProPublica keeps a database that has OSI tax returns from 2000 to 2013. TheDCNF could not find other years where OSI gave money to ACP.OSI is primarily a grant-making nonprofit that hands out millions of dollars every year to mostly left-wing causes. Now called the Open Society Foundations, Soros’s nonprofit has handed out more than $13 billion over the last three decades.OSI didn’t only plan to fund Gore’s climate group to promote global warming policies in the U.S., OSI also planned on giving millions of dollars to spur the “youth climate movement.” Greenpeace Founder: Humans Not to Blame for Global Warming “This budget item also allows for the renewal of U.S. Programs’ long-standing support of the Energy Action Coalition, which is the lead organizer of the youth climate movement in the U.S., the memo reads.“We are also including a placeholder for an additional $2 million, pending discussion about and development of OSI’s global warming agenda,” the memo reads. “There is a memo from Nancy Youman in the strategic plans binder that recommends pathways forward for OSI on the climate issue – in the U.S., as well as in other parts of the Open Society Network.” By Michael Bastasch | 0 |
Amateur president Donald Trump left his chair at a post-G-20 summit dinner to walk over and meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin for a second time, but that s another story in itself which has raised eyebrows. The former reality show star was initially seated next to Japanese First Lady Akie Abe. Ms. Abe did not speak to Trump for two hours, according to the alleged president who gave an interview with the New York Times, a paper which he has repeatedly said was failing. So, I was seated next to the wife of Prime Minister Abe [Shinzo Abe of Japan], who I think is a terrific guy, and she s a terrific woman, but doesn t speak English, Trump told Maggie Haberman of the Times in the exclusive interview. Like, nothing, right? Haberman asked. Like zero? Trump explained that Japan s First Lady didn t even say hello to him. Like, not hello, Trump told the reporter. That must make for an awkward seating, Haberman said.Trump said, Well, it s hard, because you know, you re sitting there for Hours, the reporter said. So the dinner was probably an hour and 45 minutes, Trump added. I was sitting next to the president of Argentina his wife [Mauricio] Macri nice woman, who speaks English. And the prime minister of Japan s wife, Prime Minister Abe. Great relationships, Trump continued. So I m sitting there. There was one interpreter for Japanese, cause otherwise, it would have been even tougher. But I enjoyed the evening with her, and she s really a lovely woman, and I enjoyed the whole thing was good. But here s the thing: Japan s First Lady does speak English. In this clip from 2014, Abe reads a roughly 15-minute speech before finishing with a smile, and adding Thank you very much. The Times Tokyo bureau chief, Motoko Rich, tweeted that Trump s claim was a false note. A false note here: Trump says that he sat next to Akie Abe at dinner & she speaks zero English: "Like, not hello. https://t.co/1JHOiWBEAV Motoko Rich (@motokorich) July 20, 2017Looks like the First Lady of Japan pretended not to speak English for nearly 2 hrs to avoid talking to Trump https://t.co/ee9LGHVlDo Jessica Valenti (@JessicaValenti) July 20, 2017Mrs. Abe s English is better than Donald Trump s, a man who can t form a tweet without misspelling the simplest of words.Photo by Friedemann Vogel Pool/Getty Images. | 0 |
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak congratulated U.S. president-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday, saying the Republican victor had appealed to Americans who wanted to see the United States less embroiled in intervention abroad. “His appeal to Americans who have been left behind – those who want to see their government more focused on their interests and welfare, and less embroiled in foreign interventions that proved to be against US interests – have won Mr Trump the White House,” Najib said in a statement. Najib said he looked forward to continuing a partnership with the United States under Trump’s presidency. | 0 |
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