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Turkey feels betrayed over EU accession but still wants to join the club

LONDON (Reuters) - Turkey feels betrayed by some European Union leaders who have called for the end of accession talks but still hopes eventually to join the bloc, Turkish EU Minister Omer Celik said on Thursday. The European Union has become increasingly critical of Turkey s membership drive since President Tayyip Erdogan launched a crackdown on critics - including journalists and academics - after a failed 2016 coup. Erdogan accused Berlin of Nazi-like tactics in March when it prevented Turkish ministers speaking at expatriate rallies in Germany. Chancellor Angela Merkel said in an election debate ten days ago it was clear Turkey should not join the EU and entry talks should end, despite it being a crucial NATO ally. Celik chided European Union leaders over statements on Turkish accession and said some, such as Merkel, were using the criticism to deflect attention away from the EU s internal problems such as Brexit, migration and reform. They put all those aside and they stoke antagonism towards Turkey in order to cover up their vital internal problems, Celik told Reuters in an interview. We are indeed disappointed by Merkel and some others in the EU: at one of the hardest times in our history we were left alone by our friends and allies, he said through a translator. When asked if Turkey felt betrayed, he said: Yes . The abortive coup, in which more than 260 people were killed as mutinous soldiers commandeered fighter jets, helicopters and tanks in a bid to seize power, has deepened a rift between Ankara and its Western allies. Turkish officials said some Western allies were far too slow in showing solidarity with Erdogan after the coup which they cast as a well-planned attempt to subvert Turkish democracy. Since then, some 50,000 people including journalists, opposition figures, civil servants and others have been detained. The crackdown has alarmed rights groups and some of Turkey s Western allies. Celik said that EU leaders such as Merkel had failed to keep their promises to Turkey on its EU bid which began in 1987 with an application to join what was then the European Economic Community. Turkey s accession negotiations began in 2005. The EU has failed to keep all of its promises whereas Turkey has delivered on all of the promises it made, Celik said. Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, said on Wednesday he saw no prospect of Turkey joining the EU in the foreseeable future . What has Mr Junker done, what giant strides has he made, to find solutions to bring the EU and Turkey closer? That is my question for Mr Juncker, Celik said. If Germany keeps giving orders to the EU institutions such as cutting negotiations with Turkey then it will strengthen the hand of racist groups in Europe, he said. Formally ending Turkey s accession negotiations would require unanimity among EU states, which is lacking, though majority backing is enough to suspend them. Celik suggested that a leaders summit of the EU and Turkey be called to improve relations. Turkey has not given up on its target to be a full member of the EU: We are eager and willing to find solutions to move forward, he said. EU leaders will discuss Turkey at a summit in Brussels in October, though any formal decision on its future may not come before next spring. Celik dismissed concerns that Turkey s purchase of an S-400 air missile defense system from Russia indicated the NATO member could be turning away from the West. It is obvious on which side Turkey really is, he said. Turkey has made immense contributions to security and prosperity in Europe. When it comes to Turkey being an integral part of NATO and Turkey having friendly relations with Russia, it is not an either or : they don t exclude each other and are complementary to each other.

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America’s Senator Jeff Sessions Warns of Worsening Pre-Election Border Anarchy

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U.S. Interior Dept. watchdog launches probe into Zinke's travel

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Interior Department’s watchdog agency has launched an investigation into Secretary Ryan Zinke’s travels after reports emerged last week that he had used a private plane owned by an oil executive, the inspector general’s office said on Monday. The Inspector General (IG) opened an investigation on Friday after receiving numerous complaints on Thursday about Zinke’s travels, including the use of three chartered flights, IG spokeswoman Nancy DiPaolo told Reuters. One of those flights taken in June from Las Vegas to near Zinke’s hometown in Montana was on a plane owned by oil and gas executives, costing taxpayers over $12,000, the Washington Post reported last week. Reports of Zinke’s use of private and military planes came amid heightened scrutiny into private plane use by Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, who resigned on Friday under pressure from President Donald Trump amid an uproar over his use of costly private charter planes for government business. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin have also come under scrutiny over reports of expensive private plane use. White House budget director Mick Mulvaney on Friday advised federal officials against chartering aircraft or using government planes unless necessary, reminding them that it comes out of taxpayers’ pockets. Zinke denied any inappropriate travel in a speech at conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation on Friday and said his travels were approved by “career employees” of the Interior Department’s ethics office. He called reports about his recent use of chartered private flights “a little B.S.” Zinke spoke at a dinner on June 26 to the Vegas Golden Knights hockey team, a new NHL team in Las Vegas owned by Bill Foley, chairman of Fidelity National Financial Inc, a donor to Zinke’s congressional campaigns, the Washington Post reported. Zinke flew with staff on the chartered plane to Kalispell, Montana, near his hometown of Whitefish, where he was due the next day to address the Western Governors’ Association even as commercial flights were available. Interior confirmed that Zinke flew two other chartered flights between the U.S. Virgin Islands. The Interior Department has jurisdiction over the Virgin Islands. In a letter requesting an IG investigation of Zinke’s travels, the top Democrats on the Natural Resources and Oversight committees questioned the purpose of the use of taxpayer flights to attend events unrelated to his work. “We need to know how many taxpayer-funded trips Secretary Zinke and his wife Lola have taken to serve their personal or political interests rather than the public trust,” said Congressman Raul Grijalva, who penned the letter with Congressman Donald McEachin.

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Lawyer Who Kept Hillary Campaign Chief Out of Jail in DOJ Hillary Probe

Lawyer Who Kept Hillary Campaign Chief Out of Jail in DOJ Hillary Probe November 1, 2016 Daniel Greenfield Peter Kadzik kept Hillary's campaign chief out of jail. And he hopes to do the same for her. Hillary's people have gone on the warpath against the FBI. Their allies are Obama's political appointees at the DOJ. And this is who is in their corner. The Justice Department official in charge of informing Congress about the newly reactivated Hillary Clinton email probe is a political appointee and former private-practice lawyer who kept Clinton Campaign Chairman John Podesta “out of jail,” lobbied for a tax cheat later pardoned by President Bill Clinton and led the effort to confirm Attorney General Loretta Lynch. Peter Kadzik, who was confirmed as assistant attorney general for legislative affairs in June 2014, represented Podesta in 1998 when independent counsel Kenneth Starr was investigating Podesta for his possible role in helping ex-Bill Clinton intern and mistress Monica Lewinsky land a job at the United Nations. “Fantastic lawyer. Kept me out of jail,” Podesta wrote on Sept. 8, 2008 to Obama aide Cassandra Butts, according to emails hacked from Podesta’s Gmail account and posted by WikiLeaks. Kadzik’s name has surfaced multiple times in regard to the FBI’s investigation of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton for using a private, homebrewed server. After FBI Director James Comey informed Congress on Thursday the FBI was reviving its inquiry when new evidence linked to a separate investigation was discovered, congressional leaders wrote to the Department of Justice seeking more information. Kadzik replied. “We assure you that the Department will continue to work closely with the FBI and together, dedicate all necessary resources and take appropriate steps as expeditiously as possible,” Kadzik wrote on Oct. 31. Kadzik had been an attorney with Dickstein Shapiro LLP for 18 years before he represented Podesta in the Clinton/Lewinsky investigation. He was hired in 2000 as a lobbyist for tax cheat Marc Rich, who was controversially granted a pardon by President Bill Clinton during Clinton’s final days in office. Kadzik got the job “because he was ‘trusted by [White House Chief of Staff John] Podesta,’ and was considered to be a ‘useful person to convey [Marc Rich’s] arguments to Mr. Podesta,’” according to a 2002 House Oversight Committee report. Marc Rich? Funny you should mention his name. FBI boss Comey was the prosecutor in that case. And the FBI recently released material from the investigation into that case. So there's a lot of Clinton history coming full circle here.

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Hillary Clinton: “Victory Fund” Gets Massive Cash Injection from Hedge Fund Management (Soros)

Wall Street on ParadeAt the Democratic debate at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa on November 14, 2015, Hillary Clinton attempted to portray herself as the fierce enemy of hedge funds. She told the audience the following: You have two billionaire hedge fund managers who started a Super PAC and they re advertising against me in Iowa as we speak. So they clearly think I m going to do what I say I will do . But two hedge fund billionaires backing a Republican candidate pales in comparison to the tens of millions of dollars flooding into Hillary Clinton s campaign from other hedge fund billionaires including money flowing into a joint fundraising committee called the Hillary Victory Fund that is sluicing money to both Hillary s main candidate committee, Hillary for America, as well as into the Democratic National Committee and 33 separate state Democratic committees, which has some observers crying foul.A recent article at CounterPunch, which questioned the ethics of the arrangement, quotes Paul Blumenthal, campaign finance reporter for the Huffington Post, as follows: It is a highly unusual arraignment if only because presidential candidates do not normally enter into fundraising agreements with their party s committees until after they actually win the nomination. And second, Clinton s fundraising committee is the first since the Supreme Court s 2014 McCutcheon v FEC decision eliminated aggregate contribution limits and congress increased party contribution limits in the 2014 omnibus budget bill. The Democratic National Committee has come under repeated fire for showing favoritism toward Hillary Clinton s candidacy versus that of Bernie Sanders. Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings show that the Hillary Victory Fund has given over $600,000 to the Democratic National Committee and tens of thousands of dollars each to the individual state committees that signed on to the joint fundraising plan.Hedge funds and private equity firms are desperate to hold on to their tax perversion known as carried interest, which allows their winnings to be taxed at rates lower than those paid by some plumbers and nurses. In no small part, it s how hedge fund operators ended up as billionaires, effectively subsidized by the wage earner.Federal Election Commission records show that S. Donald Sussman, founder of hedge fund Paloma Partners, gave $343,400 to the Hillary Victory Fund while also donating $2.5 million to Priorities USA, the Super Pac supporting Hillary.Hedge Fund billionaire George Soros donated $343,400 to the Hillary Victory Fund while sluicing a whopping $7 million into Priorities USA to enhance Hillary s efforts to move into the Oval Office.Jay T. Snyder of HBJ Investments, a private equity firm, gave over $300,000 to the Hillary Victory Fund.Dozens of other hedge fund and private equity operators gave lesser amounts to the Hillary Victory Fund. For example, Scott Shleifer of Tiger Global Management kicked in $167,000 while Mark Gallogly of Centerbridge Partners anted up $66,800.Other hedge fund billionaires have skipped the Hillary Victory Fund while writing out stunning amounts to the Super Pac supporting Hillary.On January 11 of this year, James Simons, the billionaire founder of hedge fund Renaissance Technologies, who now runs a family office called Euclidean Capital, wrote out a single check for $3.5 million to Priorities USA.According to the latest filing at the FEC, the Hillary Victory Fund joint fundraising committee has raised $26.9 million.According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Priorities USA has raised $55.6 million while Hillary s own campaign committee, Hillary for America, has raised $159.9 million.READ MORE US ELECTION NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire 2016 Election Files

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Exclusive: Trump calls Chinese 'grand champions' of currency manipulation

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump declared China the “grand champions” of currency manipulation on Thursday, just hours after his new Treasury secretary pledged a more methodical approach to analyzing Beijing’s foreign exchange practices. In an exclusive interview with Reuters, Trump said he has not “held back” in his assessment that China manipulates its yuan currency, despite not acting on a campaign promise to declare it a currency manipulator on his first day in office. “Well they, I think they’re grand champions at manipulation of currency. So I haven’t held back,” Trump said. “We’ll see what happens.” During his presidential campaign Trump frequently accused China of keeping its currency artificially low against the dollar to make Chinese exports cheaper, “stealing” American manufacturing jobs. But Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin told CNBC on Thursday he was not ready to pass judgment on China’s currency practices. Asked if the U.S. Treasury was planning to name China a currency manipulator any time soon, Mnuchin said he would follow its normal process of analyzing the currency practices of major U.S. trading partners. The Treasury is required to publish a report on these practices on April 15 and Oct. 15 each year. “We have a process within Treasury where we go through and look at currency manipulation across the board. We’ll go through that process. We’ll do that as we have in the past,” Mnuchin said in his first televised interview since formally taking over the department last week. “We’re not making any judgments until we go continue that process.” A formal declaration that China or any other country manipulates its currency requires the U.S. Treasury to seek negotiations to resolve the situation, a process that could end in punitive tariffs on the offender’s goods. The U.S. Treasury designated Taiwan and South Korea as currency manipulators in 1988, the year that Congress enacted the currency review law. China was the last country to get the designation, in 1994. The current situation is complicated because China’s central bank has spent billions of dollars in foreign exchange reserves in the past year to prop up the yuan to counter capital outflows. The International Monetary Fund said last year that the yuan’s value was broadly in line with its economic fundamentals. The U.S. Treasury also said in its last currency report in October that its view of China’s external imbalances had improved somewhat. Trump’s pronouncements about the yuan could also complicate matters for Mnuchin as he prepares for his first meeting next month with his Group of 20 finance minister counterparts in Baden Baden, Germany.

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WHY ARE VAN LOADS OF ILLEGALS Being Moved and Released Away From The Border?

The insanity continues! The outrageous invasion on our southern border has been so out of control in the past seven years but it s gotten to crisis mode recently with a HUGE surge in illegals from all over the world. Yes, we ve become a GLOBAL MAGNET for anyone to cross our border. Soooo what s the reason for the illegals to be released? You ll never believe it! It s because the detention centers are FULL! No kidding! The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is quietly transporting illegal immigrants from the Mexican border to Phoenix and releasing them without proper processing or issuing court appearance documents, Border Patrol sources tell Judicial Watch.The government classifies them as Other Than Mexican (OTM) and this week around 35 were transferred 116 miles north from Tucson to a Phoenix bus station where they went their separate way. Judicial Watch was present when one of the white vans carrying a group of OTMs arrived at the Phoenix Greyhound station on Buckeye Road. The OTMs are from Honduras, Colombia, El Salvador and Guatemala and Border Patrol officials say this week s batch was in custody for a couple of days and ordered to call family members in the U.S. so they could purchase a bus ticket for their upcoming trip from Phoenix. Authorities didn t bother checking the identity of the U.S. relatives or if they re in the country legally, according to a Border Patrol official directly involved in the matter. American taxpayers pick up the fare for those who claim to have a credible fear, Border Patrol sources told JW. None of the OTMs were issued official court appearance documents, but were told to promise they d show up for a hearing when notified, said federal agents with firsthand knowledge of the operation.A security company contracted by the U.S. government is driving the OTMs from the Border Patrol s Tucson Sector where they were in custody to Phoenix, sources said. The firm is called G4S and claims to be the world s leading security solutions group with operations in more than 100 countries and 610,000 employees. G4S has more than 50,000 employees in the U.S. and its domestic headquarters is in Jupiter, Florida. Judicial Watch is filing a number of public records requests to get more information involving the arrangement between G4S and the government, specifically the transport of illegal immigrants from the Mexican border to other parts of the country. The photo accompanying this story shows the uniformed G4S guard that transported the OTMs this week from Tucson to Phoenix.Outraged Border Patrol agents and supervisors on the front lines say illegal immigrants are being released in droves because there s no room to keep them in detention. They re telling us to put them on a bus and let them go, said one law enforcement official in Arizona. Just move those bodies across the country. Officially, DHS denies this is occurring and in fact earlier this year U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner R. Gil Kerlikowske blasted Border Patrol union officials for denouncing this dangerous catch-and-release policy. Kerlikowske s scolding came in response to the congressional testimony of Bandon Judd, chief of the National Border Patrol Council, the labor union that represents line agents. Judd told lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee that illegal immigrants without serious criminal convictions can be released immediately and disappear into the shadows. Kerlikowske shot back, telling a separate congressional committee: I would not stand by if the Border Patrol was releasing people without going through all of the formalities. Yet, that s exactly what s occurring. This report, part of an ongoing Judicial Watch investigation into the security risks along the southern border, features only a snippet of a much broader crisis in which illegal aliens are being released and vanishing into unsuspecting American communities. The Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest addressed this issue just a few weeks ago in a hearing called Declining Deportations and Increasing Criminal Alien Releases The Lawless Immigration Policies of the Obama Administration. Judd, the Border Patrol Union chief, delivered alarming figures at the hearing. He estimated that about 80% of apprehended illegal immigrants are released into the United States.Read more: Judicial Watch

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China urges North Korea not to go further in a 'dangerous direction'

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - China s foreign minister on Thursday called on North Korea not to go further in a dangerous direction with its nuclear program and said negotiations were the only way out of the crisis over Pyongyang s weapons development. Wang Yi also told the annual U.N. General Assembly China was committed to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and there should be no new nuclear weapons north or south of the border, or elsewhere in Northeast Asia. He urged the United States to honor its four no commitment, an apparent reference to an Aug. 1 statement by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, in which he said Washington did not seek the collapse or change of the North Korean government, accelerated reunification of the peninsula, or to send its military north of the border. We urge the DPRK not to go further along a dangerous direction, Wang said, referring to North Korea by the acronym of its official name, the Democratic People s Republic of Korea. And we call upon all parties to play a constructive role in easing tensions. There is still hope for peace and we must not give up. Negotiation is the only way out, which deserves every effort. Parties should meet each other half way, by addressing each other s legitimate concerns. Wang made no mention in his speech of U.S. President Donald Trump s announcement of new sanctions on Thursday that open the door wider to blacklisting people and entities doing business with North Korea, including its shipping and trade networks. China, North Korea s main trading partner, has backed successive rounds of United Nations sanctions over North Korean nuclear bomb tests, but has repeatedly said it is opposed to unilateral sanctions and especially long-arm jurisdiction over Chinese entities and individuals.

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STOCKHOLM STUDY: US & Europe Top Arms Trade Globally – Saudi Arabia’s Weapons Imports Skyrocket Over 200 Percent

21st Century Wire says According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), arms imports to Middle Eastern countries have had an 86 percent upsurge over the past decade. In addition, US arms exports have amounted to nearly one third of global arms imports from 2012-16. SAUDI STRIKES Saudi Arabia has repeatedly violated human rights during their ongoing military intervention in Yemen since 2015. (Photo Illustration 21WIRE s Shawn Helton)Stockholm s Arms ReportSIPRI is a Swedish based think-tank focused on independent research concerning conflict, armaments, arms control and disarmament. Established in 1966, SIPRI provides data, analysis and recommendations, based on open sources, to policymakers, researchers, media and the interested public. The recently released Stockholm study yielded some stunning conclusions concerning arms exports from the US and Europe, in addition to arms imports acquired by Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, most notably Saudi Arabia. According to this latest report from 2012-16, there has been the highest arms transfer volume over a 5-year stretch since the end of the Cold War. Here s a passage from the SPIRI armament findings that have dovetailed the ongoing Western-backed regime change campaign in Syria as well as Yemen: Saudi Arabia was the world s second largest arms importer in 2012-16, with an increase of 212 per cent compared with 2007 11. Arms imports by Qatar went up by 245 per cent. Although at lower rates, the majority of other states in the region also increased arms imports. Over the past five years, most states in the Middle East have turned primarily to the USA and Europe in their accelerated pursuit of advanced military capabilities , said Pieter Wezeman, Senior Researcher with the SIPRI Arms and Military Expenditure Programme. Despite low oil prices, countries in the region continued to order more weapons in 2016, perceiving them as crucial tools for dealing with conflicts and regional tensions. Continuing, the wartime study revealed the extensive arms supplies exported by the US in recent years: The USA supplies major arms to at least 100 countries around the world significantly more than any other supplier state , said Dr Aude Fleurant, Director of the SIPRI Arms and Military Expenditure Programme. Both advanced strike aircraft with cruise missiles and other precision-guided munitions and the latest generation air and missile defence systems account for a significant share of US arms exports. Saudi Siege in YemenIn 2015, a US-backed coalition led by Saudi Arabia and other GCC countries, directed airstrikes inside Yemen, continuing their breach of international law after announcing a ceasefire and the apparent end of Operation Decisive Storm. The Pentagon sanctioned Decisive Storm, gave way to the Orwellian-sounding, Operation Restoring Hope , even as the UN raised concerns over civilians killed throughout the consecutive Saudi Arabian airstrike campaigns in the region.In October of 2016, Time magazine confirmed the growing wartime alliance between the US and its Saudi partners as the intervention in Yemen escalated. It was then revealed that Saudi Arabia, purchased more than $20 billion in arms from the U.S. in 2015 alone. While Western allies claimed that the Saudi-led airstrikes on Yemen were meant to restore order there was no explanation as to how the unprovoked bombardment would help bring stability to an already fractured region.Almost a month after the Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen began, the LA Times published a piece entitled, Al Qaeda in Yemen using chaos of war to carve out terrorism haven. The mainstream outlet outlined the rise of Al Qaeda militants in Yemen, also known as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) following the dubious air raids conducted by Saudi Arabia.The AQAP narrative was preempted by a Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) March 19th release one week before bombing in Yemen began. The article also curiously predicted the rise of AQAP (and other Sunni extremists) as a symptom of the US-GCC proxy war in Yemen: A sectarian conflict in Yemen could help AQAP exploit the instability and expand its domestic insurgency among Sunni communities. When considering the recent arms report outlined by SIPRI, we can clearly see a how a Western engineered proxy landscape took its shape in both Syria and Yemen over the past several years. Think-tank planners telegraphed their predictions around existing military operations already put in motion.Problem, reaction, solution COAT OF ARMS The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. (Image Source: sasnetold.eu)Western-backed Terror ExposedIn December of 2016, 21WIRE discussed the recent Stop Funding Terrorism Bill (HR 5433) openly supported by US Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard: Previously 21WIRE reported how US Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (HI-D) received a somewhat hostile reception when talking with CNN s Jake Tapper about her Stop Funding Terrorism Bill. Gabbard is the first US legislator since the 1980 s to openly highlight the very real problem of US clandestine services arming and supporting violent internatonal terrorist organizations, particularly those currently operating inside of Syria.Interestingly, Gabbard s important move to stop international terrorism comes at the exact same time when the outgoing President Obama has pushed his own executive action to lift all restrictions on US arms exports and support to proxy rebel or terrorist fighting groups operating in Syria and elsewhere. In this context, we can see clearly that there is a moral battle being fought in Washington between those who oppose terrorism and those like President Obama and Senator John McCain, who have seen it as useful in the pursuit of their own geopolitical objectives, particularly by their open support of terrorist factions in Syria. Gabbard recently returned from a fact finding trip to Syria where she stated that Syrian people expressed that there are no moderate rebels fighting inside the embattled nation. Watch her discuss the matter with CNN s Jake Tapper below In 2013, the NY Times openly discussed the CIA s arms shipments (with Turkish aid) to parts of the Middle East, namely, Jordan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Unbeknownst to most US taxpayers at the time, the CIA was arming so-called moderate Syrian rebels, many of which have had links to terror. Here s a passage from the March 2013 NY Times report, that disclosed the Langley sanctioned arms shipments to rebels: With help from the C.I.A., Arab governments and Turkey have sharply increased their military aid to Syria s opposition fighters in recent months, expanding a secret airlift of arms and equipment for the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, according to air traffic data, interviews with officials in several countries and the accounts of rebel commanders.The airlift, which began on a small scale in early 2012 and continued intermittently through last fall, expanded into a steady and much heavier flow late last year, the data shows. It has grown to include more than 160 military cargo flights by Jordanian, Saudi and Qatari military-style cargo planes landing at Esenboga Airport near Ankara, and, to a lesser degree, at other Turkish and Jordanian airports. In June of 2016, the content analysis site Media Research Center underscored the US-Saudi rebel training revelations:This training program, authorized by President Obama in 2013, allows the Central Intelligence Agency to arm and train Syrian rebels under the codename Timber Sycamore. Several days ago, the NYT reported the intricate history of the U.S.-Saudi arms relationship in Syria: the C.I.A. and its Saudi counterpart have maintained an unusual arrangement for the rebel-training mission, which the Americans have code-named Timber Sycamore. Under the deal, current and former administration officials said, the Saudis contribute both weapons and large sums of money, and the C.I.A takes the lead in training the rebels on AK-47 assault rifles and tank-destroying missiles. The MRC report concluded that many of the arms shipments were found to have made their way to the black market via Jordanian intelligence: But now, some of the weapons intended for Syrian rebels have found their way to the black market. The weapons reportedly stolen by Jordanian intelligence operatives included Kalashnikov assault rifles, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. Interestingly, since 2013, the CIA s involvement in rebel training facilities in Jordan have been publicly discussed. Here s a revealing passage from the the UK s Guardian on the matter: The Pentagon said last October that a small group of US special forces and military planners had been to Jordan during the summer to help the country prepare for the possibility of Syrian use of chemical weapons and train selected rebel fighters.That planning cell, which was housed at the King Abdullah II Special Operations Training Centre in the north of the capital, Amman, has since been expanded to co-ordinate a more ambitious training programme. But Jordanian sources said the actual training was being carried out at more remote sites, with recent US reports saying it was being led by the CIA. Flash forward to January of 2016, the NY Times disclosed that millions in arms shipments supplied to Jordan from the CIA and Saudi Arabia were somehow stolen by Jordanian intelligence operatives and put on the black market, according to official reports.Today, Reuters states that the CIA has reportedly frozen aid to apparent rebel groups in Northwest Syria. Here s a passage from the Reuters exclusive: Rebel officials said that no official explanation had been given for the move this month following the jihadist assault, though several said they believed the main objective was to prevent arms and cash falling into Islamist militant hands. But they said they expected the aid freeze to be temporary.The halt in assistance, which has included salaries, training, ammunition and in some cases guided anti-tank missiles, is a response to jihadist attacks and has nothing to do with U.S. President Donald Trump replacing Barack Obama in January, two U.S. officials familiar with the CIA-led program said. Interestingly, a new narrative taking shape blames an apparent militant attack on so-called Syrian rebel groups carried out by members formerly of Al-Nusra Front ( now of Jabhat Fateh al-Sham), a known al Qaeda s affiliate.In July of 2015, we at 21WIRE reported the following developments taking place inside Syria: it was reported that the Army of Islam operating in Damascus, executed members of ISIS that s right, Sunnis militants taking out their own. The Gulf State backed army is comprised of 50 or so groups, including members of ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda and the Washington supported FSA rebels, the so-called moderates that the US is still collaborating with in Syria. Is it possible we are seeing a similar development concerning the recent Reuters revelations or is there something else at play?More about the Stockholm arms study on RT below (Image Source: nybooks.com)RTBetween 2007 2011 and 2012 2016 arms imports by states in the Middle East rose by 86 percent, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said on Monday.India was the world s largest importer of major arms in 2012 2016, accounting for 13 percent of the global total, the study said. Over the past five years, most states in the Middle East have turned primarily to the USA and Europe in their accelerated pursuit of advanced military capabilities, Pieter Wezeman, senior researcher with the SIPRI Arms and Military Expenditure Program, said. Despite low oil prices, countries in the region continued to order more weapons in 2016, perceiving them as crucial tools for dealing with conflicts and regional tensions, he added.With a one-third share of global arms exports, the USA was the top arms exporter in 2012 16. Its arms exports increased by 21 percent compared with 2007 2011.Almost half of US arms exports went to the Middle East, SIPRI said, adding that arms imports by Qatar went up by 245 percent. The USA supplies major arms to at least 100 countries around the world significantly more than any other supplier state, Dr. Aude Fleurant, director of the SIPRI Arms and Military Expenditure Program, said. Both advanced strike aircraft with cruise missiles and other precision-guided munitions and the latest generation air and missile defense systems account for a significant share of US arms exports. Saudi Arabia s defense expenditure grew by 5.7 percent to $87.2 billion in 2015, making it the world s third-largest spender at the time, according to a SIPRI report from April.More from RT News here READ MORE YEMEN NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Yemen FilesREAD MORE ON SYRIA: 21st Century Wire Syria FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV

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PODESTA THREATENS TUCKER For Exposing The Truth [Video]

Wow! The arrogance is beyond the pale Tony Podesta s lawyer sent a threat to Tucker Carlson!Tonight, Tucker Carlson spoke about his insight into the Podesta Group and the lobbying activity on behalf of Russian interests.THEN THIS:Tucker drops a bomb when he reveals he s had legal threats from lawyers representing Tony and John Podesta and the DC Lobbying Group they founded:Next, Democrat lawyer, Jonathan Turley, discusses Special Counsel Robert Mueller and where he s heading from here. Turley is always fair and is a brilliant lawyer who has great insight.OUR PREVIOUS REPORT ON THE PODESTA BROTHERS:Could this be what Tony Podesta is referring to? Tucker Carlson had bombshell announcements tonight that he even seemed shocked by. The biggest one was that the Podesta brothers and Paul Manafort are central figures in the Russia investigation NOT Trump:.@TuckerCarlson: Source Says Podesta Brothers & Manafort, Not #Trump, 'Central Figures' in Russia Probe https://t.co/A5XLV46ovw | #Tucker pic.twitter.com/IL5u7QtiOK Fox News (@FoxNews) October 25, 2017Fox News reported:A thus-far-reliable source who used to be involved with Clinton allies John and Tony Podesta told Tucker Carlson that press reports appearing to implicate President Trump in Russian collusion are exaggerated.The source, who Carlson said he would not yet name, said he worked for the brothers Podesta Group and was privy to some information from Robert Mueller s special investigation.While media reports describe former Black, Manafort & Stone principal Paul Manafort as Trump s main tie to the investigation, the source said it is Manafort s role as a liaison between Russia and the Podesta Group that is drawing the scrutiny.The vehicle Manafort worked for was what Carlson called a sham company with a headquarters listed in Belgium but whose contact information was linked to Kiev, the Ukrainian capital.Manafort was, at the time, representing Russian business and political interests during the Obama era.The source said the Podesta Group was in regular contact with Manafort while Hillary Clinton was America s chief diplomat.

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Turkey says Myanmar allows first foreign aid deliveries

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Myanmar authorities have given approval for the first deliveries of foreign aid in the northwest of the country, Turkey said on Tuesday, after President Tayyip Erdogan spoke to Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday, Erdogan s spokesman said. Spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said 1,000 tonnes of food, clothes and medicine would be delivered to the area by helicopter from Wednesday, where Muslim Rohingya are fleeing violence.

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'Margaret Thatcher is my role model': German far-right AfD leader

BERLIN (Reuters) - Alice Weidel, a leader of Germany s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, said the late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is her political role model, saying Thatcher got Britain back on its feet when it was facing economic ruin. Weidel told the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag newspaper that her party, which stormed into parliament for the first time after capturing nearly 13 percent of the vote, aimed to be ready to join a coalition government by 2021. That could be a long shot since all mainstream parties have rejected working with the AfD. Weidel said the party was content serving in opposition now, but its long-term goal was to shape policy, and Thatcher s experience in Britain was a helpful guide. Margaret Thatcher is my political role model, Weidel told the newspaper, lauding the U.K. leader s willingness to swim against the current when necessary. Thatcher took over Great Britain when the country was economically in the dumps and built it up again. Weidel, a lesbian, said her partner and two adopted sons would move to Berlin from Switzerland when the partner s current film project was completed. She said only 18 percent of the AfD s voters were women which was way too few and the party needed to attract more women voters. She said she favoured free child care and kindergartens because that would help families. Weidel also urged former AfD leader Frauke Petry to give up her seat in parliament after quitting the party the day after the election and vowing to sit as an independent. I don t have any animosity, Weidel said. I think it s a shame that she left the AfD. I consider it the wrong decision. Petry this month kicked off a new Blue Party , promising a reasonable conservative agenda and berating AfD leaders for holding views too far outside the mainstream.

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Britain and France to work to enforce Iran nuclear deal: UK PM May's office

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain and France are firmly committed to a 2015 Iranian nuclear deal and will work to ensure it is enforced, British Prime Minister Theresa May s office said on Monday after she spoke to French President Macron. May and Macron discussed U.S. President Donald Trump s decision to not recertify the deal and said that France and Britain would work together to push back on Iran s destabilizing activity in the region, May s office said in a statement after the phonecall.

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TONIGHT’S FIRST PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE: What Time? Where To Watch…And MORE Inside Scoop

Debate officials have released the details of Monday night s presidential debate between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump.This be will the country s first chance to see the candidates go 1-on-1 and answer questions on key issues, including immigration, health care, gun control, abortion rights and foreign policy.Here is a look at what to know for the first 2016 presidential debate:WHAT TIME IS THE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE TONIGHT? The event begins at 9 o clock Eastern time and will run 90 minutes.WHAT CHANNEL IS THE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE ON? The debate will be broadcast on all the major television networks (ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, PBS, Telemundo, Univision) and cable outlets (CNBS, CNN, C-SPAN Fox News, Fox Business, MSNBC).HOW CAN YOU WATCH THE DEBATE ONLINE? Facebook and Twitter will both live stream the event. So will all the networks and cable news outlets, as well as the Daily Caller, the Huffington Post, Hulu, Politico, the Wall Street Journal, and Yahoo.NJ.com will be hosting live updates and a discussion.WHERE IS THE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE? Clinton and Trump will share a stage at the David S. Mach Sports and Exhibition Complex at Hofstra University on Long Island, N.Y.WHO IS THE MODERATOR OF THE DEBATE? Lester Holt, the host of NBC s Nightly News. WHO IS DEBATING TONIGHT? Only Clinton and Trump. Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson, Green Party candidate Jill Stein, and independent candidate Evan Mcmullen did not meet the criteria to qualify which was essentially to be at 15 percent in recent national polls. Via: nj.comThe 90-minute debate will be broken into six, 15 minute pods, the Commission on Presidential Debates announced on Sunday.Clinton s podium will be stage left and Trump s podium will be stage right, the CPD said.LIARS FIRST:Clinton will receive the first question. She will have two minutes to answer and Trump will have two minutes to respond.That will be followed by 10 minutes of open conversation and debate.Some of the rules were made by agreement between the campaigns and some were decided by coin toss but CPD wouldn t say which ones.The debate will be held before an audience of 1,000 viewers in the hall. The three largest ticket blocks are going to the two campaigns and Hofstra. The university said they are giving all of their tickets to students, which they say they also did in 2008 and 2012. Via: NBC News

1real

The controversial test that's poised to replace the Pap smear

In new "interim guidance" — published today in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology — experts from influential medical groups such as the American Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology and the Society of Gynecologic Oncology argue that doctors should consider replacing the Pap smear with the HPV (human papillomavirus) test in women ages 25 to 65. The Pap smear would still be the primary screening method in women under 25, and would be used to look for irregular cells in some older women who get a positive result from the HPV test. This is a change from the current guidelines, which recommend Pap smears alone at three year intervals for women under 30, or the additional option of "co-testing" with both the Pap and HPV test at five year intervals for women ages 30 to 65. The rationale is that we now know most all cervical cancers (between 90 and 99 percent) are caused by HPV. This more sensitive test will detect more cancer in women and potentially save lives. Our concern is that there’s a lot of cervical cancer that's being missed on the Pap test "In women who have a negative [HPV test] result," said lead author on the interim guidance Dr. Warner Huh, "their risk of developing cancer is extraordinarily small over a three year window. You can't make that same claim with a Pap test. We know the false-negative rate for a Pap test is about 50 percent. It's a coin toss. "Our concern is that there’s a lot of cervical cancer and pre-cancer that's being missed on the Pap test." But not everybody agrees with the new approach. The main point of contention is this: not all HPV actually leads to cancer — a lot of it is benign and clears up without any treatment at all — so expanded use of the HPV test could lead more "false positives," or women being treated for cancers that would have never harmed them. "So many women get HPV who will never, ever get cancer," Diana Zuckerman, head of the National Center for Health Research, told NPR. The new interim guidance also drops the age for HPV testing from 30 to 25, which could theoretically lead to more unnecessary testing and treatment among young women. Dr. Huh's group believes the benefit-harms ratio lies in favor of earlier and more aggressive HPV screening. "We fully recognize that [detecting more HPV] substantially increases the number of procedures that will be required, like colposcopies," he said. "But we felt that increased disease protection would be meaningfully important to women and health-care providers." He explained that the group convened to come up with the new advice after a Food and Drug Administration panel suggested last year that a new HPV test become the standard of care for women. For now, the interim guidance is meant to guide doctors' and patients' decision-making until new, official guidelines arrive in the next few years. Until then, here is what you should know about Pap tests and HPV tests: Pap smears have been the primary cervical-cancer test for women for decades. The test was invented in the US in 1941 by none other than George Papanicolaou. (Weird fact: He actually established the technique by examining vaginal debris from guinea pigs and then translated that knowledge to humans.) At the time, it was a game changer and model for cancer screening: it was the first effort to detect early cancer and it turned cervical cancer into a largely curable disease. But the test isn't perfect. It involves scraping the walls of the cervix and vagina for cells, which are placed on a slide and sent off to cytologists who look for abnormalities under microscopes. Sometimes the doctor doesn't scrape the area of the cervix where bad cells are harbored, sometimes she doesn't transfer them to the slide properly. That's why the doctors who drafted the interim guidance about the HPV test (and the FDA panel last year) are pushing for expanded use of the new test. "We know the Pap test is not very reproducible. If you get a Pap test, three different pathologists will give you three different interpretations of the results," said Dr. Huh. "The HPV test is either positive or negative, like a pregnancy test." According to the current guidelines, women ages 30 and above (or 25, according to the interim guidance) should consider another option: the HPV test. The HPV test works like a Pap test. Doctors use a speculum to open the vaginal canal and reach the cervix, and then they gently scrape the cervical canal to collect a cell sample. The difference, however, is how the sample is screened. The HPV tests looks for the presence of the virus, not abnormal cells. And the bottom line about the HPV test is this: it's more sensitive than Pap smears at catching cancer-causing HPV, meaning it can more accurately detect the virus. The authors of the interim guidance want to see this test used first in women ages 25 to 65. Then, for women who test positive for some strains of HPV, they want the Pap test used second to detect whether the HPV is associated with cell abnormalities in the cervix. But, again, there is a risk here and one that the medical community will be debating: whether 25 is too young to start routinely screening women for HPV. That's because HPV is not always deadly, and in most women, clears within a year or two. Running this ultra sensitive test at an earlier age could mean sending patients into tests and treatments that will have no positive impact on their lives or health outcomes. (For this reason, until now, doctors have said this test has a "low predictive value" for cervical cancer in women under 30.) Until more consensus emerges in the medical community about a new age cut off, if you're between 25 and 30, you might want to talk to your doctor about getting an HPV test. If you're over 30, the current guidelines already recommend "co-testing" or getting both the HPV and Pap test at the same time. That's because HPV in older women is more likely to be related to cell abnormalities that could become cancerous. So having a sensitive test is a good thing. Whatever approach you chose with your doctor, remember that getting any sort of screening is the most important first step. "At least half of the cases of cervical cancer in the US occur because women have not had appropriate screening or follow-up," said Dr. Michael LeFevre, who chairs the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.

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DEM STRATEGIST Says Torture OF White Special Needs Teen By Black Thugs NOT A Hate Crime “If It Was About Things Trump Said” [VIDEO]

CNN host Don Lemon asks guest Simone Sanders, former Press Secretary for Bernie Sanders: How can you say it s not a hate crime against a white person? Simone answers Lemon s question by suggesting that this is NOT a hate crime. She goes on to say that if the 4 black thugs that beat and tortured this mentally disabled teen did it because they hated Trump, it shouldn t be a hate crime. Sanders explains, Motive here matters. So was this for hate of Donald Trump, the President-elect because of things that he has said, or was this for pure hate of white people? Yeah, so torturing another human being you kidnapped for hours is okay, as long as it was just about something Trump said.

1real

Boiler Room EP #115 – Very Fake News & The Slaughter of Innocence

Tune in to the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR) for another LIVE broadcast of The Boiler Room tonight 6:00 PM PST | 8:00 PM CST | 9:00 PM EST for this special broadcast. Join us for uncensored, uninterruptible talk radio, custom-made for bar fly philosophers, misguided moralists, masochists, street corner evangelists, media-maniacs, savants, political animals and otherwise lovable rascals.Join ACR hosts Hesher and Spore along with Andy Nowicki and Daniel Spaulding of Soul of the East also with a special report from FunkSoul (21WIRE & ACR contributor), for the hundred and fifteenth episode of BOILER ROOM. Turn it up, tune in and hang with the ACR Brain-Trust for this weeks boil downs and analysis and the usual gnashing of the teeth of the political animals in the social reject club.This week on the show we re discussing the latest expos videos from Project Veritas that confirm what we ve been saying since the inception of the Boiler Room, CNN is FAKE NEWS and PROPAGANDA. We ll also be updating the stories on the Grenfell tower fire, Bernie Sanders and his wife under investigation by the FBI for financial fraud, creepy inappropriate kids videos on YouTube and the supposed case against one of the FBI agents involved in the shooting of LaVoy Finicum and more.Direct Download Episode #115Please like and share the program and visit our donate page to get involved! Reference Links, for your consideration and research:

1real

Roseanne Barr: Every Attack on Trump ’Really a Disguised Attack on American Voters’

Comedian Roseanne Barr took to Twitter Monday to defend President Donald Trump from unspecified attacks, which she said were really “disguised” attacks on American voters. [“Every single attack on @POTUS is really a disguised attack on American voters who rejected ’s bleeding of R treasury,” Barr tweeted. Every single attack on @POTUS is really a disguised attack on American voters who rejected ’s bleeding of R treasury. — Roseanne Barr (@therealroseanne) March 20, 2017, The Roseanne star — whose own 2012 presidential run was the subject of a documentary film — frequently praised Trump during the 2016 race and has continued to defend his presidency on social media. In June, the comedian told the Hollywood Reporter that the country would be “lucky” if Trump won, “because then it wouldn’t be Hillary. ” “I like Trump because he financed his own [campaign],” Barr said then. “That’s the only way he could’ve gotten that nomination. Because nobody wants a president who isn’t from Yale and Harvard and in the club. ‘Cause it’s all about distribution. When you’re in the club, you’ve got people that you sell to. That’s how money changes hands, that’s how business works. If you’ve got friends there, they scratch your back and blah, blah. ” Last week, Barr spoke out after Palestinian activist and Women’s March organizer Linda Sarsour said it is impossible to be both a Zionist and a feminist. “Is it even possible to be a feminist?” Barr fired back on Twitter. Barr also announced last week that the cast of her hit 1990s television show was “up for a reunion show. ” Roseanne ran for nine seasons between 1988 and 1997 and won three Golden Globe awards. Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum

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Key quotes from Congress' hearing on Russia and the U.S. election

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House Intelligence Committee on Monday held an unusual open hearing on Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and related issues. Here are key quotes from the hearing, where FBI Director James Comey and National Security Agency director Admiral Michael Rogers testified: ON PRESIDENT TRUMP’S CLAIM THAT FORMER PRESIDENT OBAMA WIRETAPPED HIM: “With respect to the president’s tweets about alleged wiretapping directed at him by the prior administration, I have no information that supports those tweets, and we have looked carefully inside the FBI. The Department of Justice has asked me to share with you that the answer is the same for the Department of Justice and all its components.” - Comey “Let me be clear: we know there was not a wiretap on Trump Tower. However, it’s still possible that other surveillance activities were used against President Trump and his associates.” - Committee Chairman Representative Devin Nunes “I have been authorized by the Department of Justice to confirm that the FBI, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election and that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts.” - Comey ON UNVERIFIED CLAIMS THAT OBAMA ASKED BRITAIN’S GCHQ TO EAVESDROP ON TRUMP: “That would be expressly against the construct of the Five Eyes (intelligence-sharing) agreement that’s been in place for decades. ... I have seen nothing on the NSA side that we engaged in any such activity.” The claim “clearly frustrates a key ally of ours.” - Rogers “Numerous current and former officials have leaked purportedly classified information in connection to these questions. We aim to determine who has leaked or facilitated leaks of classified information so that these individuals can be brought to justice.” - Nunes “Leaks have always been a problem. I read over the weekend something from George Washington and Abraham Lincoln complaining about them. But I do think in the last six weeks, couple of months, there’s been ... a lot of conversation about classified matters that’s ending up in the media.” - Comey. ON THE U.S. INTELLIGENCE JUDGMENT THAT RUSSIA FAVORED TRUMP OVER DEMOCRATIC OPPONENT HILLARY CLINTON: “I think that was a fairly easy judgment for the community. Putin hated Secretary Clinton so much that the flip side of that coin was he had a clear preference for the person running against the person he hated so much.” - Comey “They’ll be back in 2020. They may be back in 2018 and one of the lessons they may draw from this is that they were successful because they introduced chaos and division and discord.” - Comey ON WHETHER RUSSIAN INFLUENCE DETERMINED THE ELECTION OUTCOME: “We will never know whether the Russian intervention was determinative in such a close election. ... What does matter is this: The Russians successfully meddled in our democracy and our intelligence agencies have concluded they will do so again.” - Ranking committee Democrat Representative Adam Schiff

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THOUGHT POLICE: US Border Control Wants to Study Your Facebook, Twitter Accounts

Patrick Henningsen 21st Century WireIf this latest proposal from the US becomes policy, it could be a major watershed point for the globalized police state, allowing governments to not only to profile you, but also to target and even exclude individuals based on their online speech and activity. This week we learned that US border control have been running a shadow test program behind the scenes, where travelers into the US are asked to declare their online presence , including any social media accounts and associated blogs.The US Federal Register states, Collecting social media data will enhance the existing investigative process and provide Department of Homeland Security (DHS) greater clarity and visibility to possible nefarious activity and connections by providing an additional tool set which analysts and investigators may use to better analyze and investigate the case. In the hive mind of the state, the term nefarious is proven to be a flexible one, and could encompass persons of any political or intellectual persuasion who travel internationally. Where does it end?So who are these arbiters of political thought and social discourse?According to this recent report by The Guardian, the deciders are likely to be hourly wage earners working for the TSA, or contractors working under the banner of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Initially, these workers would be tasked with analyzing your online presence : US Customs and Border Protection s proposed change would add a line on both the online and paper forms of the visa application form that visitors to the US must fill out if they do not have a visa and are planning on staying for up to 90 days.The following question would be added to both the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (Esta) and I-94W forms: Please enter information associated with your online presence Provider/Platform Social media identifier. Thus far, the DHS claim they are only running a limited pilot program , one which the agency is keeping confidential and out of the public eye. Officials claim that the secrecy surrounding this controversial program is because they don t want to reveal their methods for identifying a potential terror threat. Millions of visitors disembark in US each week (Photo: Flickr user Tom May via Fast Company)In practical terms, with 10 million visa applications and over 77 million visitors annually what we are really seeing here is a giant big data capturing exercise that will quickly generate an additional column on your personal database sitting alongside your standard personal, facial recognition and other biometric ID information, as well as your travel history, and anchored by the RFID chip already embedded in most international passports.How the DHS expects its border control staff to properly vet and verify the information in question before a traveler passes through border security is hard to ascertain. The potential for misinformation is ever present.Eventually, processing this amount of data will probably be farmed out to high speed intelligent, or A.I. computer systems. Similar high-end, algorithm-based analytical surveillance programs like PRISM is already being used by US and UK government agencies to trawl through masses of public online activity, so it only stands to reason that A.I. will eventually perform the job of flagging-up any undesirables.If you went by the US media rhetoric you d think that Facebook and Twitter were the number one causes of global terrorism. No surprise then, that the battle cry for this latest DHS program has to be last December s apparent ISIS-inspired terrorist event in San Bernardino, and the subsequent controversy over the FBI s ability access to one of the suspect s encrypted iPhone 5C.What s more likely to be driving this grand security directive is not necessarily some effective plan to keep people safe , but rather, highly lucrative commercial interests.CIA is investing in firms that specialize in sifting through social media postshttps://t.co/nDVBvKt0bz pic.twitter.com/jiWZgQhYDX RT America (@RT_America) April 15, 2016No Private SpacesPerhaps the most troubling aspect of this story has to do with assessing the relationship between the individual and the government and the expectation of privacy in a so-called democratic or free society.In this instance, the government is adopting a blanket policy of judging a person as guilty until proven innocent. By ceding this expectation to the government, an individual consenting to this arrangement by forgoing his or her right to privacy and due process. As history shows us time and time again, once you give this away, it s very difficult to get back.In a BBC interview this week, Joseph Lorenzo Hall, chief technologist at the Centre for Democracy and Technology points out one of the fundamental flaws in the government s new regime, as he explains: It s very hard to see travellers not filling out this item even though it s optional as they may fear not getting entry into the country. Democracy in general requires having spaces free from government scrutiny and increasingly social life happens online. We would have a poor society if people were chilled from participating in social activity online so I really hope they rethink this. Now many Americans might look at this story and think, This doesn t affect me, it s only for foreigners. While that may seem true on the surface, the reality is that this DHS system is designed for Americans too. Consider it phase one. Besides this, do not be surprised if whatever rights you deny your neighbor, will eventually be denied of you too.This is what technocracy looks like it s brutal, unforgiving, and ultimately unresponsive to common sense and reason. Worst of all, it pretends to be driven by a perceived public interest in safety and security, but in reality the only security that s ever achieved through such measures are secure profits for a select number of corporate firms fortunate enough to win corporate contracts in the ever-expanding security theatre that is Homeland Security. Author Patrick Henningsen is also founder and editor at 21st Century Wire, and an independent foreign and political affairs analyst for RT News International. He is also the host of the SUNDAY WIRE talk radio program which airs live every Sunday on the Alternate Current Radio Network. Support our work and Become a Member at 21WIRE.TVREAD MORE WAR ON TERROR NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire War on Terror Files

1real

Chris Bosh’s Desire to Play Leaves Heat at an Ethical Crossroads - The New York Times

Chris Bosh, one of the top players in the N. B. A. has never caused trouble for his team, on or off the court. He has won two N. B. A. titles and been selected for the Game 11 times. The Miami Heat, however, do not want him to step on the court for them this season, or perhaps ever again. In one of the strangest and most ethically challenging standoffs in sports history, Bosh and the Heat are locked in a dispute over whether he should be deemed medically fit to play after dealing with serious health problems. With training camp scheduled to start this week, Bosh says he is ready to go. The Heat say he is not. Bosh’s last two seasons have been cut short by blood clots. He has indicated that he has worked with a private physician to devise therapies that would allow him to play. The Heat are less certain. Bosh is owed about $76 million over the next three seasons whether he plays or not. So if the team is, in fact, looking out for Bosh’s welfare, it suggests an exception to what is perhaps a more common practice of pro sports franchises: pushing players to compete regardless of medical concerns. The Heat announced their conclusion, citing a medical exam, after Bosh’s recent emergence from a cocoon of silence to wage a public battle with the team’s medical staff. Bosh has done several interviews with Uninterrupted — his former teammate LeBron James’s digital platform for athletes — in which he has sought to make his case. “Yeah, I’ll be there,” he said about training camp on a recent Uninterrupted podcast. “Will I be cleared? I don’t know. That’s out of my hands. I will play basketball in the N. B. A. I’m confident. ” People with blood clots typically take medication, which is probably one of the most daunting hurdles for Bosh. Athletes who are on blood thinners are advised to avoid contact sports because of an increased chance of internal bleeding and other complications. Even an elbow to the ribs could cause significant damage, said Dr. David Forsh, the chief of orthopedic trauma at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in Manhattan. “There are a lot of risks,” he said. Bosh experienced his first known clotting problem in February 2015. He had cramps, spasms and shortness of breath, although he tried to hide his symptoms, he said. Bosh recalled one particular instance when he was in pain until 3 or 4 in the morning and the Heat were scheduled to face the Dallas Mavericks the next day. Bosh played because the Heat were already . “Not the best thing to do,” Bosh said on the podcast. He added: “One thing about athletes — and I don’t know what it is about us — we ignore pain, or we try our best to ignore pain. And I think that’s one of the worst things you can possibly do. ” Bosh was eventually hospitalized, and tests revealed that a blood clot in his calf had traveled to his lungs, causing a pulmonary embolism — a problem that can be fatal. Bosh had surgery and spent nine days in a hospital. He lost 20 to 25 pounds, he said, and missed the final 30 games of the season. Bosh has never publicly articulated his specific course of treatment, but he presumably took drugs. He appeared in a television commercial for one such medication, Xarelto. Bosh was cleared by the Heat to return for the season opener. He played well through the first half of the season, averaging 19. 1 points and 7. 4 rebounds per game before the break. But a few days before the Game, he awoke with a sore calf. He was soon found to have had a recurrence of blood clots. He met with team doctors, who told him that his season was over and that his career was probably finished, too, he said. “I felt right away that I was written off,” Bosh said in one of his interviews with Uninterrupted. He added, “If a doctor tells me, ‘Hey, that’s it, and this is how it is,’ and I don’t buy that, then I think I have the right to disagree with you. ” Bosh also alluded to the tension between himself and the Heat’s medical staff. “If you’re an athlete in this game, you have to protect your own interests, and you have to protect your body and your family,” Bosh said. “If one doctor is a doctor for 15 guys, who’s paying this guy?” He added, “If you’re paying a doctor through your pocket, your insurance — whatever that case may be — that changes their interest. ” It has mostly remained a public tussle. The Heat, aside from sporadic statements, have not spoken in detail about Bosh’s medical situation, nor have team officials said what liability, if any, the franchise might have if something were to happen to Bosh on the court. The Heat’s president, Pat Riley, told reporters on Monday that Bosh’s career with the team “is probably over. ” “There is not a next step for us,” Riley said. “It’s pretty definitive for us in our position. ” The Heat declined interview requests for this article. The players’ union did not immediately return a call seeking comment. Samantha Brennan, a philosophy professor at Western University in London, Ontario, teaches a class on sports ethics that touches on the role of team doctors and the conflicts of interest that can arise — namely, clearing athletes to return to competition before they are ready. “That’s what makes the case involving Chris Bosh so unusual,” Brennan said, referring to the urge among teams to send players back onto the field. So what happens if an athlete, fully aware of the medical risks, insists on continuing to play? Does the team have a moral responsibility to look out for the athlete’s ? In most cases, Brennan said, risk taking is left to the discretion of adults. The challenge with many athletes, she said, is that they have invested so much of themselves in their careers from an early age that it can cloud their judgment. “When they need to make a difficult decision, it puts them in a bind,” Brennan said. “It makes it very hard for them to say, ‘I’m ready to stop playing. ’” Ultimately, Brennan said, an athlete is an employee, and team officials have the power to do what they want. “So they’re making two kinds of decisions,” Brennan said, referring to the Heat. “One is an ethical decision about not wanting someone they know and care about — imagine if he died playing. They’re also making a decision because they’re worried about injuries and liability. ” Dr. Jack Ansell, a professor of medicine at Hofstra Northwell School of Medicine on Long Island, said he knew of several athletes who had managed problems by taking blood thinners between games and then allowing the medication to be flushed from their systems before they returned to competition. Ansell, a member and former chairman of the medical and scientific advisory board of the National Blood Clot Alliance, has not examined Bosh and has no specific knowledge of his case. But Ansell said he suspected that Bosh would need therapy to prevent recurring clots and that the grueling schedule of the N. B. A. would make intermittent treatment difficult. “You’re playing games every two or three nights,” he said, “so there’s no real time off. ” Rebekah Bradford Plath, a speedskater who competed at the 2010 Winter Olympics, developed a pulmonary embolism in 2012. While still on therapy, she resumed training. The risks were fairly minimal. speedskating is a noncontact sport, although falls do happen Bradford Plath wore a helmet. “I do know that I probably made some of my teammates nervous when they were skating around me,” she said in a telephone interview. “Some of them understood the significance of what I was doing. But I trusted my ability, I trusted the ability of my teammates, and I felt comfortable and confident. ” Last year, after having knee surgery, Bradford Plath had a recurrence of blood clotting even though she was taking blood thinners at the time. After her physician increased the dosage, she said, the clot cleared. Bradford Plath, who still takes blood thinners when she travels on airplanes, continues to train with an eye on the 2018 Winter Olympics.

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Trump news conference sets worldwide social media afire

NEW YORK (Reuters) - In his first news conference since the Nov. 8 election, President-elect Donald Trump set social media ablaze on Wednesday with remarks including harsh criticism of the press and a defense of his goal to improve ties with Russia. The session, held in the lobby of his Trump Tower headquarters in Manhattan, featured a number of viral moments, like an exchange with a reporter whom Trump accused of peddling “fake news.” “I’m not going to give you a question,” Trump told the journalist from CNN, which reported on Tuesday that the Republican president-elect had been briefed by U.S. intelligence agencies about allegations that Russian operatives had compromising information about him. “You are fake news!” he told the reporter in a moment that reverberated on Twitter. Trump’s comment that reporters were “the only ones who care” about whether he released his tax returns stirred up 165,000 tweets during the session. Social media users asked others to “retweet if you’re not a reporter and still care about seeing Trump’s tax returns.” In Russia, the hashtag #TrumpPressConference was a top-trending topic during the news conference and for several hours afterward. “If Putin likes Donald Trump, I consider that an asset, not a liability because we have a horrible relationship with Russia,” Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, said in reference to the Russian president. “I don’t know that I’m going to get along with Vladimir Putin. I hope I do. But there’s a good chance I won’t,” Trump said, prompting thousands of tweets from people in Russia. U.S. intelligence agencies have said Russia was behind a hacking campaign aimed at boosting Trump’s presidential candidacy against Democrat Hillary Clinton. There were some 80,000 tweets worldwide stamped with the #TrumpPressConference tag during the hour-long session with about 250 reporters. Twitter sentiment regarding Trump during the event was 14 percent positive, 63 percent neutral and 23 percent negative, according to global digital marketing technology company Amobee. Also stirring Twitter reaction were Trump’s comments about the wall he has pledged to build on the U.S.-Mexican border and to have Mexico pay for. He said he would not wait for negotiations with Mexico before beginning construction, but added: “Mexico in some form ... will reimburse us.” In response, former Mexican President Vicente Fox tweeted: “Neither today, nor tomorrow nor never Mexico will pay for that stupid wall.”

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Factbox: First 100 days of Trump on Twitter

(Reuters) - President Donald Trump has cemented his credentials as Tweeter in Chief since taking office. Nearly 100 days into his presidency, Trump has posted 489 tweets, or about five per day on average, typically between the hours of 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. EDT, according to data compiled by Thomson Reuters. Trump is the first U.S. president to use his personal Twitter account @realDonaldTrump. Since his account was created in 2009, Trump has sent out 34,800 tweets. One of the most active politicians on Twitter, Trump has previously expressed his love for Twitter. In Nov 2012, he tweeted:  The tweet got 5,033 retweets and 5,399 likes. Trump currently has 28.4 million followers. His predecessor Barack Obama, the first U.S. president to ever have a Twitter account, had 13.5 million followers on his official handle @POTUS. He sent out only 342 tweets as president. The following is a chart comparing how Trump used Twitter as a president-elect and president: How frequently @realDonaldTrump tweets: As President-elect: 434 total tweets; Average of 6 tweets per day As President: 489 total tweets; Average of 5 tweets per day What hour @realDonaldTrump typically tweets: As President-elect: 8 a.m. EDT / 61 tweets As President: 8 a.m. EDT/ 74 tweets Hashtags/topics/handles used the most:  As President-elect: Trump tweeted at news handles the most such as@CNN @FoxNews @nytimes, calling out “fake news” stories but used hashtags celebrating his win like #ThankYouTour2016 #AmericaFirst and promoting his inauguration like #InaugurationDay #Inauguration2017 As President: Trump tweeted the most at news handles such as @nytimes @foxandfriends @CNN about “fake news” reporting but topics changed to promoting his policies like #RepealANDReplace #Obamacare Most tweeted day and why: As President-elect: Jan. 16: 15 tweets promoting free tickets to Trump’s inauguration-related events As President: Feb 8: 11 tweets regarding Jeff Sessions’ confirmation and unfair treatment towards daughter Ivanka Trump; Feb. 15: 11 tweets regarding Russian intelligence probe and intelligence agency leaking How often @realDonaldTrump retweets versus tweets: As President-elect: 413 tweets, 22 retweets. Trump tweets about 19x more than he RTs As President: 464 tweets, 24 retweets, Trump tweets about 19x more than he RTs Followers @realDonaldTrump:  As President-elect: 21 million total net followers As President: 28 million total net followers Followers @POTUS:  As President-elect: 14 million total net followers As President: 17 million total net followers Most retweeted tweet: As President-elect: Nov. 9, 2016  As President: Jan. 22, 2017    NOTE: Data based on Crimson Hexagon, BrandWatch, Thomson Reuters, Zoomph

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Google’s Alphabet Experiment Misses Goal: Keeping Executives 26 October 2016 , by Mark Bergen (Bloomberg) http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-26/google-s-alphabet-experiment-misses-key-goal-keeping-executives - Google Fiber is the latest moonshot arm to undergo overhaul - Three Alphabet CEOs have left since June; Barratt is latest Alphabet Cutting Jobs in Google Fiber Retrenchment 25 October 2016 , by Mark Bergen (Bloomberg) http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-25/alphabet-access-unit-to-cut-about-9-of-google-fiber-staff - Top executive leaves after disagreement over Fiber strategy - Google Fiber cuts expansion plans in eight large cities

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The Fix Is In on UK Brexit Vote in Parliament

The Fix Is In on UK Brexit Vote in Parliament November 07, 2016 The Fix Is In on UK Brexit Vote in Parliament Britain's plans to leave the European Union will include a vote by parliament on legislation to translate EU law into British law, Brexit minister David Davis said on Monday. "European Union law will be transposed into UK law at the time we leave, providing certainty for workers, businesses and consumers," Davis said. "This will be an act of parliament which we intend to have in place before the end of the Article 50 process." Article by Doc Burkhart , Vice-President, General Manager and co-host of TRUNEWS with Rick Wiles Got a news tip? Email us at Help support the ministry of TRUNEWS with your one-time or monthly gift of financial support. DONATE NOW ! DOWNLOAD THE TRUNEWS MOBILE APP! CLICK HERE! Donate Today! Support TRUNEWS to help build a global news network that provides a credible source for world news We believe Christians need and deserve their own global news network to keep the worldwide Church informed, and to offer Christians a positive alternative to the anti-Christian bigotry of the mainstream news media Top Stories

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Donald Trump Throws Temper Tantrum After FBI Doesn’t Charge Hillary Clinton (TWEETS)

Donald Trump just heard that Hillary Clinton won t face charges from the FBI and he went ballistic.Conservatives have been frothing at the mouth over the prospect of Hillary Clinton being arrested and jailed over whatever imaginary crimes they believe she has committed. But after meeting personally with the FBI about her so-called email scandal, it is now expected that the investigation will be dropped and no charges will be filed.This comes on the heels of the Republican report on Benghazi that cleared Clinton of any wrongdoing after four years and $7 million spent trying to find anything to pin on the former Secretary of State.Ever since it became clear that Hillary would be his opponent, Trump has referred to Clinton as Crooked Hillary, and has used both Benghazi and the email probe as the centerpieces of his attacks against her. But now that the FBI and House Republicans have found no evidence against her, Trump has lost his two favorite attacks and he had a complete meltdown about it on Twitter on Saturday. It is impossible for the FBI not to recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton, the Republican nominee wrote. What she did was wrong! What Bill did was stupid! It is impossible for the FBI not to recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton. What she did was wrong! What Bill did was stupid! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 2, 2016What Trump is referring to is Bill Clinton s brief exchange with Attorney General Loretta Lynch last week. The two were coincidentally at the Phoenix airport at the same time, so Clinton stopped by to see her since the two have known each other for a long time going back to when he appointed her as a U.S. Attorney in 1999. According to Lynch, while it may not have been wise for the two to chat in private, the conversation was innocent and had nothing to do with the investigation. They spoke about golf and grandchildren, Lynch said. And frankly, Lynch should be given the benefit of the doubt.But you can t tell that to Trump, who also declared on Saturday night that the system is rigged because the FBI didn t charge Clinton like he wanted them to do. It was just announced-by sources-that no charges will be brought against Crooked Hillary Clinton. Like I said, the system is totally rigged! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 2, 2016Basically, Donald Trump is going to have a hard time using Benghazi or the email probe against Clinton in a general election in which most people are not paranoid conservatives who see conspiracy theories everywhere they go. It will work on conservative crowds that are easy to work into a frenzy because they already hate Clinton with a murderous passion, but the Republican Benghazi report that exonerates her combined with the FBI declining to charge Clinton over emails basically gives the American people four months to forget about it because they won t care in a couple days if they ever really cared at all since this whole circus was manufactured by Republicans anyway in an effort to pin some sort of scandal on her. But just like Republicans failed to pin manufactured scandals on President Obama, Republicans have failed once again because Hillary Clinton did nothing wrong.Featured image via Joe Raedle/Getty Images

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US election 2016: Bernie Sanders' and Hillary Clinton's policies compared

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are in a pitched battle for the Democratic nomination, fighting for the hearts and minds of left-leaning voters across the US. But where do they stand on the issues? While the candidates often agree on substance if not style, here's a look at five areas where they differ - not just from each other, but from their presidential predecessors, as well. They will go up - but for whom? Bernie Sanders promises he will reduce income inequality through changes to US through tax policy. He has called for a 10% tax surcharge on billionaires, raising the top three tax brackets and creating a new top rate, boosting capital gains and estate taxes, extending Social Security taxes, going after income made abroad by US corporations, and creating a new 0.2% tax on all earners to fund a paid family leave programme. Hillary Clinton's tax plan is basically Sanders-lite. She wants a 4% surtax on income over $5 million, an increase in capital gains taxes, the closing of "tax loopholes" for the wealthy, taxing hedge fund managers' "carried interest" income at higher rates and increasing the estate tax rate. Bill Clinton also raised taxes on the wealthy - and caught considerable criticism from conservatives for doing so. He instituted two new high-level tax brackets, raised corporate taxes, and increased income subject to Medicare and Social Security levies. After Republicans took control of Congress two years into his administration, he signed legislation lowering the capital gains taxes. He also increased a tax credit for poorer workers. John F Kennedy was the original Democratic tax-cutter. He reduced the top rate in the US from 95% to 65% and the corporate tax rate from 52% to 47%. Today's conservatives love to quote his claim that a high tax rate "siphons out of the private economy too large a share of personal and business purchasing power". Pitching college education that's free or just affordable Bernie Sanders has set the bar when it comes to higher education policy in the modern Democratic Party, with his call for free college for all Americans funded by taxing Wall Street financial transactions. He points to the runaway costs of higher education as one of the driving forces behind growing income inequality in the US. Hillary Clinton supports a plan to make two-year community college free, but her higher education policies are more modest. She has called for lowering student loan interest rates, providing $17.5 billion to improve the quality of higher education and encouraging colleges to set affordable tuition rates that don't require student loans. Barack Obama signed legislation streamlining the student loan system, including provisions that allow the government to directly loan money to students rather than rely on for-profit middle-men. He has also proposed making the first two years of college free, with a programme modelled on a Tennessee system devised by the state's Republican governor. Lyndon Baines Johnson is the godfather of the modern Democratic Party's education policies. As president he spearheaded passage of the Higher Education Act of 1965, which increased federal funding for universities and provided low-interest student loans and grants for needy students. It was landmark legislation in its day - but now seems relatively modest. Mend it or end it - and start over from scratch. Barack Obama supported and signed legislation increasing government regulation of the health insurance industry and creating private insurance markets for individuals not covered by employer-provided insurance. The programme was based, in part, on Republican proposals from the 1990s and the system instituted in Massachusetts by then-Governor Mitt Romney. For Bernie Sanders, however, that particular half-loaf is far from enough. He wants to institute a single-payer government-run health insurance system fashioned on Medicare. He has also called for allowing the government to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies in order to lower prices and permitting Americans to import medication from Canada, where it is less expensive. Hillary Clinton has said Mr Sanders is advancing an unrealistic proposal that threatens hard-won healthcare reforms made during Mr Obama's tenure. Instead she wants to expand existing law to improve coverage for prescription drugs and allow the government to negotiate with pharmaceutical manufacturers for better prices. The former first lady does know a thing or two about how hard it is to get healthcare bills through Congress. In 1993 she was the driving force behind Bill Clinton's proposed legislation, which created a federal minimum-benefits healthcare package with limits on out-of-pocket expenses, all provided by regional healthcare alliances. That effort went down in flames before it even came to a vote in Congress. The one place where Clinton comes at Sanders from the left Hillary Clinton is the first prominent Democratic presidential candidate to openly run on a gun-control platform since Al Gore's losing campaign in 2000. She supports holding gun manufacturers liable for deaths caused by their products, expanding background checks and prohibiting those on no-fly list from purchasing firearms. She has also supported reinstating the ban on semi-automatic "assault" rifles. Bernie Sanders, a senator from the rural state of Vermont, has a more moderate position on guns - although he has moved to the left over the course of the campaign. He supports expanded background checks on gun purchases and an assault weapons ban, but opposes holding gun manufacturers liable for deaths. He voted against a gun purchase waiting period multiple times in the early 1990s and for allowing guns in national parks. Barack Obama shied away from campaigning on gun control in his two presidential campaigns, but the murder of schoolchildren in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012 convinced him to act. He has since called for an assault weapons ban and expanded background checks. He has taken unilateral executive action to increase enforcement of laws against gun trafficking and broadening the scope of federal regulation of firearm transactions. Franklin Delano Roosevelt made the first serious effort at gun control by a Democratic president to date and his call in 1934 to create a national firearm registry and institute a federal tax on all gun purchases. No major Democratic officeholder would even consider broaching such a proposal today. It wouldn't just be dead on arrival in Congress, for many politicians it would be political suicide. Hillary Clinton, as secretary of state, was one of the more hawkish members of Mr Obama's cabinet. It's no surprise then that as a presidential candidate she is well to the right of Mr Sanders and even Mr Obama. She has called for greater US involvement in the Syrian civil war, including enforcing a no-fly zone, and supports a continued US military presence in Afghanistan. Bernie Sanders generally agrees with Barack Obama's foreign policies - limited involvement in Syria and an emphasis on working with US allies. He contrasts himself with Mrs Clinton by noting the past US military action that she supported and he opposed - in Libya and Iraq. He supports a full US withdrawal from Afghanistan and no US training of rebels in the Syrian civil war. John F Kennedy's foreign policy as president, compared to the current crop of Democratic politicians, seems downright bellicose. He was an interventionist at heart, authorising the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, taking a hard line against Soviet expansion in the Western hemisphere and initiating US involvement in Vietnam.

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NBC Insults The Hell Out Of Trump With Tagline For New ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ (VIDEO)

Donald Trump s biggest claim to fame, The Apprentice and Celebrity Apprentice, were endangered last year when he revealed himself to be nothing but a horrible, childish bigot in presidential candidates clothing. At that time, NBC fired him and began looking at who might replace him, and now they have their answer, along with a very insulting tagline.NBC tapped Arnold Schwarzenegger to replace Trump last fall, but made it official with a new promo they released over the weekend. It says, on The Apprentice s YouTube channel: Brains, brawn and business acumen we re building a better boss. [emphasis mine]Ouch. That can be taken several different ways the most obvious being that they think Schwarzenegger s more rounded personality is a better fit than Trump ever was.That s insulting enough. However, NBC specifically fired Trump over his comments about Mexican immigrants last year, at the same time other companies cut ties with him for the same reason. So this could also be seen as a dig at him for what s proven to be his severe lack of even a modicum of professionalism pretty much anywhere.NBC also won t bring Trump back, even if he loses the election and comes crawling back on his hands and knees. NBC s entertainment chair, Robert Greenblatt, said earlier this month: No. He would never be back on Celebrity Apprentice, as long as I m here. Woe to Trump if whatever new business ventures on which he embarks after losing in November fail, just like so many of his other businesses have failed.Rumors are swirling that Trump may be using this election cycle to help launch his own television network, rather than making a serious run at the White House. However, Trump Steaks, Trump Vodka, Trump University, Trump Taj Mahal, and more, were all such dismal failures it s a wonder Trump thinks he can even pull off a new business venture. Despite possibly having help from Roger Ailes and Steve Bannon, a Trump television network might fail just as hard.Oh, Trumplestiltskin. His days of fame are numbered, and NBC is trying to make that number shrink. Watch the promo for Celebrity Apprentice below:Featured image via screen capture from embedded video

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Report: Seattle Probably Won’t Sign Colin Kaepernick

Spike Lee has some explaining to do. [Three days after the leftist filmmaker, and avowed Kaepernick supporter, took to Instagram to thank Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll for signing Colin Kaepernick, a report has emerged that the Seahawks in fact have no intention of signing Colin Kaepernick. According to Pro Football Talk, “Pat Kirwan of SiriusXM NFL Radio said today that he doesn’t expect the Seahawks to sign Kaepernick. That’s particularly noteworthy because Kirwan has a long and close relationship with Seahawks coach Pete Carroll, dating to their time together when Carroll was defensive coordinator and then head coach of the Jets from 1990 to 1994. Kirwan didn’t say Carroll was the source of his belief that Kaepernick won’t be a Seahawk, but it seems unlikely that Kirwan would have bad information about the team his old friend coaches. ” Seattle, much like San Francisco, is one of the biggest liberal outposts on the left coast. Considering the activism of players like Doug Baldwin, and the fact that Pete Carroll himself is a truther and an Iraq war critic to boot, if Seattle ever truly had interest in Kaepernick it’s unlikely that interest would have evaporated over Kaepernick’s politics or because of a perceived backlash over his politics. What’s more likely is that Kaepernick and the Seahawks couldn’t agree on financial terms. Seattle doesn’t have a ton of cap space and Kaepernick probably doesn’t want to play for the veteran minimum, especially considering that he could likely find himself in a much more powerful financial bargaining position later, should a team lose a starter and all of a sudden become desperate for a starting quarterback. Follow Dylan Gwinn on Twitter: @themightygwinn

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MI GOP CHAIR, RONNA ROMNEY-MCDANIEL Chooses Own Course: Backs Republican Candidate That Won’t Make Her Uncle Happy

Ronna Romney McDaniel is the Chairman of the Michigan Republican Party. She s the daughter of Mitt Romney s older brother Scott and the outspoken former GOP US Senate candidate Ronna Romney. She may be the niece of the man the GOP elite have annointed as their spokesperson for the Republican voter, but she s not towing the line when it comes to interfering with the will of We The People.Ronna took the opportunity to address the crowd prior to the GOP debate at the Fox Theater last week, where she announced she would support whomever the candidate the people of MI chose at the polls. Obviously, this came as a surprise for many who expected her to follow the lead of her high-profile uncle, who has chosen to fight harder to defeat Donald Trump at the polls than he did Barack Obama when he was running against him in 2102.The niece of 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney wishes her uncle was in the White House, but vows she ll support Donald Trump the candidate Romney publicly attacked in a brutal takedown speech last week.In an interview by MSNBC s Chris Matthews in Detroit on Tuesday night where Trump sailed to victory in the state s primary Ronna Romney McDaniel said she believes the real estate billionaire is committed to staying in the [Republican] party. McDaniel said that rallies she s attended for Trump in Michigan are not a traditional Republican crowd, but that she s not surprised he won the state handily. If he s our nominee, I m going to support him, she declared.She also said her uncle is not an option for the party s nominee if there is a contested GOP convention this summer.He said he s not interested, she said. I wish he were president now. But I am pleased with our field. Let s see what happens.Via: Newsmax

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DONALD TRUMP’S COMEBACK After 50 RINO “Republicans” Pledge Not To Support Him Is BRILLIANT!

50 so-called Republicans just outed themselves and will be targets for defeat! How did they do that? Well, they decided it would be a great idea to go against the wishes of the American people and refuse to support our candidate in the presidential election. THEY SIGNED A PLEDGE IN A LETTER TO REFUSE SUPPORT FOR TRUMP. Yes, Republicans like Susan Collins who has an F rating on her Liberty Score (she votes 90% with the Democrats!):Donald Trump put out a reply that is simply brilliant:

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U.S. files suit against DynCorp International over Iraq contract

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has filed a lawsuit against DynCorp International Inc alleging that it submitted inflated claims in connection with a U.S. government contract to train Iraqi police forces, the Justice Department said on Tuesday. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that DynCorp knowingly allowed one of its subcontractors to charge excessive rates for hotels, translator, security guard and driving services, and overhead expenses, and included these charges in claims it submitted under the State Department contract, the Justice Department said in a statement.

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German politicians accuse Trump of trivializing Nazi violence

BERLIN (Reuters) - Senior German politicians on Wednesday accused U.S. President Donald Trump of trivializing violence by white supremacists in Virginia and called for a clear rejection of their ideology. Governments could only win the fight against hatred, racism and anti-Semitism by rejecting such ideology and the willingness to use violence, said Martin Schulz, the center-left candidate for chancellor, adding that this applies to Germany and the United States. “The trivialization of Nazi violence by the confused utterances of Donald Trump is highly dangerous,” said Schulz, leader of the Social Democrats (SPD). “We should not tolerate the monstrosities coming out of the president’s mouth,” he told the RND newspaper group in an interview. Republican leaders criticized Trump for saying leftist counter-protesters were also to blame for violence last Saturday in Charlottesville that left one person dead and several injured. His comments won praise from white far-right groups. Schulz is the main challenger to Chancellor Angela Merkel at a Sept. 24 election. The SPD, junior partner in Merkel’s grand coalition, trails Merkel’s conservatives in polls. Schulz’s comments were echoed by Justice Minister Heiko Maas, another senior member of the SPD. “It is unbearable how Trump is now glossing over the violence of the right-wing hordes from Charlottesville,” Maas said in a statement, reflecting concern across the German political spectrum about the Trump presidency. “No one should trivialize anti-Semitism and racism by neo-Nazis,” said Maas, senior member of the co-governing SPD. Schulz and Maas are the highest-ranking German politicians to criticize Trump’s rhetoric about the violence. The country has tough laws against hate speech and any symbols linked to Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, who ruled from 1933 until their defeat in 1945. Merkel told broadcaster Phoenix on Monday that clear and forceful action was required to combat right-wing extremism, noting that Germans had also seen a rise in anti-Semitism and had “quite a lot to do at home ourselves”. Trump has come under increasing pressure over his stance on the violence, with many members of his own Republican party and U.S. business executives distancing themselves from him. Trump on Tuesday said his original reaction was based on facts he had at the time and said both sides were to blame. The violence erupted during a protest by white nationalists against plans to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee, commander of the pro-slavery Confederate army during the American Civil War. Protesters and counter-protesters clashed in scattered street brawls before a car ploughed into the rally’s opponents, killing one woman and injuring 19 other people.

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Boehner takes revenge

Top Dems want White House to call off Part B demo — The next cancer drug shortage

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Fox News Host Trashes GOP Candidates, Says The Debate Was An Embarrassment (VIDEO)

The Republican Party is truly screwed if Fox News is thinking like this.During an appearance on the O Reilly Factor on Friday night, Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace delivered a scathing analysis of the GOP Debate held on Thursday, calling it an embarrassment for the Republican Party. Let me just say first of all- big picture- I thought it was an embarrassment for the Republican party. There were a lot of shots taken, a lot of shots scored, but there was precious little vision. Almost no serious discussion of issues, you know, what are are you going to do, how are are you going to improve people s lives? If you saw someone acting presidentially on that stage, you got better eyesight than I do. Here s the video via YouTube:Indeed, the GOP Debate was a complete circus that saw every candidate sniping at each other with ridiculous attacks. Clearly, Trump brought Cruz and Rubio down to his level of gutter politics.Here s a clip demonstrating the debate in a nutshell:// < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&#038;version=v2.3"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); // ]]&gt;#GOPDebate In A NutshellIn case you couldn t watch the laughable mess that was the GOP debate, here s the clip that really showcases what it came down to. Do ANY of them seem presidential? Let us know your thoughts in the comments. Want to make it extra fun? Tag your favorite Republican friend and ask them to explain this.Like Americans Against The Republican Party for more!Posted by Americans Against The Republican Party on Thursday, February 25, 2016It truly was a pathetic display that should horrify the Republican Party and the American people. And Republicans only have themselves to blame because they welcomed crazy extremists into the mainstream of the party years ago when they sold out to the Tea Party in 2010. Now it s coming back to bit them in the ass so hard that not even Fox News can spin them out of it.Featured Image: Screenshot

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Australian court says no guarantee of speedy ruling on citizenship crisis

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia s High Court said on Thursday it was aware of the need to rule on the eligibility of seven lawmakers quickly, but warned it could not guarantee a speedy resolution to a case that threatens the government s one-seat majority in parliament. Parliament was rocked in August when seven lawmakers, including the Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce and two other cabinet ministers, said they held dual-citizenship, potentially ruling them ineligible to hold elected office. The uncertainty has put the government s future under the spotlight. The court is aware of the need for a speedy decision, but it is not always possible to do so immediately, said chief justice, Susan Kiefel. The court s decision will determine whether Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull can maintain his shaky grip on power. Should the court rule that Joyce, the sole lower house lawmaker caught up in the crisis, is ineligible, Turnbull will need to win the support of one of three independent lawmakers to keep his minority government. The remaining six politicians embroiled in the case are senators and their seats would be assigned to alternatives from their political party. A potential deal with an independent politician would allow Turnbull s government to continue until a special election for Joyce s seat can be held, most likely in November. Joyce, popular among rural voters who dominate his local constituency, has already indicated he will stand for re-election after renouncing his New Zealand citizenship in August. Special by-elections are extremely volatile but it is lucky for Turnbull that it is Joyce that may have to stand, as country Australians seem not to trust the prime minister, said Nick Economou, senior lecturer in Australian politics at Monash University in Melbourne. Support from rural voters, who overwhelmingly backed Turnbull in his razor thin re-election last year, has fallen to its lowest level in more than two years, a Newspoll for The Australian newspaper on Monday showed.

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Bayefsky: France Prepares Yet Another Anti-Israel International Assault, with Obama’s Blessing - Breitbart

President Obama has gone rogue and only one man can protect American democracy in the next few days: the . [On January 15, 2017, with only five days left after 2, 917 days in office, President Barack Obama is planning once again to feed Israel to the international wolves. The move is intended to tie the hands of President Donald Trump and is a direct repudiation of the will of the American electorate who rejected Obama’s calamitous foreign policy and a repeat performance by his secretary of state. On Sunday, France is scheduled to hold an international conference to unleash an international mob on Israel. The meeting is taking place with Obama’s direct connivance. have been lined up to impose their preferences on the Middle East’s only democracy. Israelis are still dying in Israeli streets after seventy years of unending Arab terror — and the folks sitting in Paris munching on croissants know best how to protect Israeli national security. The by France and its Arab allies — with the blessing of President Obama — raises unavoidable questions: Who will attend? If they attend, how senior a representative will be sent by the main players on the Security Council: the U. S. Russia, and the United Kingdom? Will attendees sign on to an outcome document imperiling Israel that is already circulating? Will the Middle East Quartet — composed of the U. S. the EU, Russia and the UN — approve of the outcome document? Will a UN Security Council subsequently approve of the outcome document before January 20, 2017? The French meeting follows on President Obama helping to ram through a UN Security Council resolution on December 23, 2016 that was clearly intended to unleash a legal and economic pogrom against the Jewish state. It didn’t take long for Palestinian terrorists to get the message: sidelining a negotiated solution between the parties by an Israeli villain at the UN was a greenlight for the enforcers in Gaza City and Ramallah. President Obama’s collusion on jettisons decades of bipartisan policy prioritizing a negotiated path to peace, and flies in the face of overwhelming bipartisan opposition in Congress reconfirmed by the House just last week. Since the point of this flurry of international activity by is to scuttle and deny President Trump’s foreign policy remit, participants in the French mugging of the Jewish state need to know — now — what they should expect five days later on January 20, 2017. UK Prime Minister Theresa May has already made calls to the incoming team and expects to be on the list of early visitors welcomed to the White House in the spring. EU countries will similarly come asking for help easing fallout, tackling refugee problems, and buttressing security needs. The Middle East Quartet is desperate to continue its role supervising the conflict and to avoid a return to sole American custody. The UN is an economic ward of the United States — to the tune of upwards of 10 billion a year — currently parked in the middle of a place many diplomats prefer to home. So here are some suggestions that may be communicated to those interested in a productive relationship with the man in office five days later and his colleagues now in charge of the purse strings on Capitol Hill — if the French refuse at their peril to postpone it altogether: As for the UN, there is only one subject that understand and it isn’t a Congressional memo begging the institution to treat Israel better the next time. A promise to insist on an immediate halt of the transfer of funds to the UN pending a thorough accounting of expenditures and a strategic review of the relationship, would be a good start. The rogue in the White House is poised to derail any prospect of peace in the foreseeable future, further endanger Israel’s security and the country’s ability to safeguard Jewish identity. If his believe it will be expect the onslaught to proceed as planned. Anne Bayefsky is the Director of Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust President of Human Rights Voices.

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Obama pushes controversial trade deal in Germany

HANNOVER, Germany — President Obama on Sunday defended a controversial trade deal between the United States and the European Union that he wants to finalize before leaving office in January. Speaking at a news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Obama said people around the world are unsettled by globalization but that trade has brought tremendous benefits and more jobs. "When people visibly see a plant lost or jobs lost, the narrative drives a lot of suspicion about these trade deals," he said. "If you look at the benefits for our economies, it is indisputable that they are made stronger." Obama said it was necessary to complete the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) agreement because 95% of markets are outside U.S. borders. He said he was confident that TTIP could be completed by the end of the year. A separate trade pact covering 12 Pacific rim countries known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership could "start moving forward" once the U.S. presidential election is over, he said. Obama praised Merkel several times during the news conference before the two leaders then opened the Hannover Messe, the world's largest industrial technology trade fair. "This is as important a relationship as I have had during my presidency. Angela has been consistent and steady," Obama said. "She has a really good sense of humor that she doesn't always show in press conferences. That's probably why she has lasted so long as a leader. She watches what she says." He said Merkel was "on the right side of history" for her lenient policies to admit refugees, and she was "courageous" for her handling of Europe's migrant crisis because it was a position that has harmed her political approval ratings. Obama arrived in Germany on Sunday from London, where me met with British Prime Minister David Cameron, had lunch and dinner with members of the royal family and interjected his opinion into the United Kingdom's contentious debate over whether that country should leave the EU. Britain will hold a June 23 vote on the issue. The president angered anti-EU campaigners by saying the U.K.'s trade clout outside the 28-member bloc would be diminished. TTIP's supporters say the trade pact would make it easier and cheaper for companies on both sides of the Atlantic to do business together, as well as provide a much needed boost to the global economy amid persistent, sluggish growth. There is fierce opposition to TTIP in Germany — Europe's largest economy and most important political voice — where it is believed the deal would erode consumer and environmental protections. About 35,000 people marched in Hannover on Saturday against the proposed deal that would cover more than 800 million people. Merkel said in the news conference that adopting TTIP was an important step that would allow European economies to grow. "We need to speed matters up now," she said. While in London, Obama said TTIP would bring millions of jobs and billions of dollars in benefits to both regions.  About 300 U.S. companies are attending the trade show in Hannover. Obama acknowledged that negotiating trade deals was "tough” because countries want to fight for their domestic interests. “The main thing between the United States and Europe is trying to just break down some of the regulatory differences that make it difficult to do business back and forth,” the president said. A recent survey published by the Bertelsmann foundation, a Germany-based research group, found only one in five Germans favors the proposed trade pact, and one in three would reject it completely. In the U.S., only 18% of respondents oppose TTIP, the report found. "Support for trade agreements is fading in a country that views itself as the global export champion," said Aart De Geus, the foundation's chairman and chief executive. "Trade is a key driver of the German economy. If it weakens, Germany's economic power as well as its labor market could falter." Obama and Merkel said they discussed a number of other issues in their meeting Sunday, including the ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan, Libya and Syria. Obama said American and German thinking was aligned regarding Syria, but they differ over the idea of carving out "safe zones" in Syria for the thousands of people fleeing violence. “As a practical matter, sadly, it is very difficult to see how it would operate short of us essentially being willing to militarily take over a chunk of that country,” Obama said.

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WATCH: Trump Just Threatened The Media With ‘Consequences’ For Doing Their Jobs

No matter what you think about Buzzfeed publishing a dossier of unverified information about Trump, threatening the free press with consequences should never be tolerated.But that s exactly what Donald Trump did during his first press conference in six months after the contents of the report went viral.On Tuesday, Buzzfeed released a dossier of alleged information gathered by Russia to use against Trump, which included a claim that he was videotaped at the Ritz Carlton in Moscow paying prostitutes to pee on the bed in the presidential suite that President Obama had used during previous visits to the nation.Predictably, Trump lashed out on Twitter.Russia just said the unverified report paid for by political opponents is A COMPLETE AND TOTAL FABRICATION, UTTER NONSENSE. Very unfair! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2017Russia has never tried to use leverage over me. I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2017I win an election easily, a great movement is verified, and crooked opponents try to belittle our victory with FAKE NEWS. A sorry state! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2017Apparently, Trump feels it is perfectly acceptable to tout fake news about Hillary Clinton but when that news is about him he thinks it s unacceptable and should be punished.It s true that the information has yet to be verified, but this is no different than a lot of the bullshit stories Fox News ran with about President Obama over the last eight years and no different than what conservative media and Trump did to Hillary Clinton over the course of the election by citing unverified Wikileaks documents.But rather than simply dispute the report, Trump went a tyrannical step further by threatening Buzzfeed with consequences for reporting on the story. As far as BuzzFeed, which is a failing pile of garbage writing it I think they re going to suffer the consequences, Trump said.Here s the video via YouTube.Trump went on to have a shouting match with CNN s Jim Acosta and accused the news organization of being fake news as his minions applauded.Donald Trump is a serious threat to the free press. And he s only making things worse for himself by making such accusations.Fox News politics editor Chris Stirewalt warned Trump to be careful earlier on Wednesday, basically noting that Trump only has himself to blame. I would caution Trump and his supporters about this: This is what they asked for when they praised Julian Assange and Wikileaks to the high heavens and said, We don t care where it came from. We don t care if it s verified. It s been stolen but it s bad for the Democrats and now the truth is out so here you go. Featured Image: Screenshot

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WARNING SHOTS FROM RUSSIA? CHILLING Footage Shows Nuclear Submarine Launches Cruise Missile… Russian fighter pilot ‘performs barrel roll’ OVER US Air Force Plane Only 25ft Away…Obama Shrugs [VIDEO]

265 days and counting Is this a warning shot? This chilling footage shows a Russian nuclear submarine launching a cruise missile from underwater to destroy a coastal training target.The 120-metre Severodvinsk submarine can be seen sinking slowly below the surface of the Barents Sea as part of Russian navy Arctic combat drills.Then the Kalibr missile erupts from the waves in a plume of smoke and streaks away into the distance. A loud rumbling can be heard before the camera zooms in to show the launch site.It is the latest show of strength from the country s military after a number of close passes by fighter jets near US planes and ships.This year Russia has increased its military presence in the Arctic region where it and other world powers are locked in a battle to claim valuable territory and underwater mining rights. MirrorA Russian fighter pilot has provoked fury at the Pentagon after allegedly performing a barrel roll just 25 feet from an American reconnaissance plane over the Baltic Sea.Outraged defense officials called the interception manoeuvre unsafe and unprofessional , but Russia said it was forced to intercept the American RC-135 plane because it had switched off its identifying transponder.The Pentagon admitted the barrel roll incident could escalate tensions between the countries after a number of close-flying encounters.In a taunting statement the Russian defence ministry said: We are already starting to get used to the insults of the Pentagon regarding alleged unprofessional manoeuvres when our fighters intercept US spy planes at the Russian border. The US Air Force has two solutions either not to fly near our borders, or to turn the transponder on for identification. Reports differed on just how close the Russian SU-27 Flanker fighter jet came to its lumbering quarry. US Army spokeswoman Lt Col Michelle Baldanza said it came within 25 feet, or 7.6m, while others claimed a figure of 100 feet, or 30 metres.Lt Col Baldanza told CNN: The SU-27 intercepted the U.S. aircraft flying a routine route at high rate of speed from the side then proceeded to perform an aggressive maneuver that posed a threat to the safety of the U.S. aircrew in the RC-135. Mirror No worries Barry s got it under control

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Moron Of The Day: Joe Scarborough Seriously Compares Trump To Prince (VIDEO)

Media Matters reports that on Friday morning, Joe Scarborough made a total ass of himself by comparing Donald Trump, the racist, sexist, knuckle-dragging buffoon, to the artist now and forever known as Prince:DONNY DEUTSCH: Trump voters, we all know right now, are so sticky. They re not going anywhere.JOE SCARBOROUGH (HOST): Yeah.DEUTSCH: Everybody who s voted for Hillary, well, I guess Hillary. Number two, he can go to the left and right of Hillary and pretty much put portfolio of issues together he s behind.NICOLLE WALLACE: Because he doesn t really care that much. I mean, he s so nimble.DEUTSCH: And to the point, to this last point SCARBOROUGH: And by the way. I ll give you the last point in a second, but just on this other point where you said he s so flexible, he s like Prince, a shape-shifter, New York Times top left, election 2016, Trump s views on gay issues set him apart on the GOP. I mean, Trump on social issues, on Planned Parenthood, when he was in the middle of the fight in South Carolina, it wasn t like he was hiding things. And so Hillary is going to be up against a guy that not only says we re not going to cut Social Security, I m with you on social issues. And by the way, we re going to kill ISIS in two weeks.Joe Scarborough is so far up Trump s ass that he probably thought this was a compliment to Prince. But let s be honest, Prince was an artist, a priceless cultural treasure that elevated his field. He influenced an entire generation of musicians and his presence will be sorely missed.Trump, on the other hand, is a con artist, a tacky cultural eyesore like his ugly buildings. His influence is a net negative for society. And that was BEFORE he got into politics. Trump s candidacy is not about the lowest common denominator, it IS the lowest common denominator. When he loses in November and eventually fades away in disgrace, no one will miss him but racists and misogynists.Scarborough was trying to compare their shape-shifting in a favorable way but Prince constantly re-invented himself while holding on to the core of his genius. Trump has no core other than, Will it make me money and/or more famous? This was a sad display, even for a hack like Scarborough.Here s the video:Featured image via screencap

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Why We Believe Obvious Untruths - The New York Times

How can so many people believe things that are demonstrably false? The question has taken on new urgency as the Trump administration propagates falsehoods about voter fraud, climate change and crime statistics that large swaths of the population have bought into. But collective delusion is not new, nor is it the sole province of the political right. Plenty of liberals believe, counter to scientific consensus, that G. M. O.s are poisonous, and that vaccines cause autism. The situation is vexing because it seems so easy to solve. The truth is obvious if you bother to look for it, right? This line of thinking leads to explanations of the hoodwinked masses that amount to little more than name calling: “Those people are foolish” or “Those people are monsters. ” Such accounts may make us feel good about ourselves, but they are misguided and simplistic: They reflect a misunderstanding of knowledge that focuses too narrowly on what goes on between our ears. Here is the humbler truth: On their own, individuals are not well equipped to separate fact from fiction, and they never will be. Ignorance is our natural state it is a product of the way the mind works. What really sets human beings apart is not our individual mental capacity. The secret to our success is our ability to jointly pursue complex goals by dividing cognitive labor. Hunting, trade, agriculture, manufacturing — all of our innovations — were made possible by this ability. Chimpanzees can surpass young children on numerical and spatial reasoning tasks, but they cannot come close on tasks that require collaborating with another individual to achieve a goal. Each of us knows only a little bit, but together we can achieve remarkable feats. Knowledge isn’t in my head or in your head. It’s shared. Consider some simple examples. You know that the earth revolves around the sun. But can you rehearse the astronomical observations and calculations that led to that conclusion? You know that smoking causes cancer. But can you articulate what smoke does to our cells, how cancers form and why some kinds of smoke are more dangerous than others? We’re guessing no. Most of what you “know” — most of what anyone knows — about any topic is a placeholder for information stored elsewhere, in a textbook or in some expert’s head. One consequence of the fact that knowledge is distributed this way is that being part of a community of knowledge can make people feel as if they understand things they don’t. Recently, one of us ran a series of studies in which we told people about some new scientific discoveries that we fabricated, like rocks that glow. When we said that scientists had not yet explained the glowing rocks and then asked our respondents how well they understood how such rocks glow, they reported not understanding at all — a very natural response given that they knew nothing about the rocks. But when we told another group about the same discovery, only this time claiming that scientists had explained how the rocks glowed, our respondents reported a little bit more understanding. It was as if the scientists’ knowledge (which we never described) had been directly transmitted to them. The sense of understanding is contagious. The understanding that others have, or claim to have, makes us feel smarter. This happens only when people believe they have access to the relevant information: When our experimental story indicated that the scientists worked for the Army and were keeping the explanation secret, people no longer felt that they had any understanding of why the rocks glowed. The key point here is not that people are irrational it’s that this irrationality comes from a very rational place. People fail to distinguish what they know from what others know because it is often impossible to draw sharp boundaries between what knowledge resides in our heads and what resides elsewhere. This is especially true of divisive political issues. Your mind cannot master and retain sufficiently detailed knowledge about many of them. You must rely on your community. But if you are not aware that you are piggybacking on the knowledge of others, it can lead to hubris. Recently, for example, there was a vociferous outcry when President Trump and Congress rolled back regulations on the dumping of mining waste in waterways. This may be bad policy, but most people don’t have sufficient expertise to draw that conclusion because evaluating the policy is complicated. Environmental policy is about balancing costs and benefits. In this case, you need to know something about what mining waste does to waterways and in what quantities these effects occur, how much economic activity depends on being able to dump freely, how a decrease in mining activity would be made up for from other energy sources and how environmentally damaging those are, and on and on. We suspect that most of those people expressing outrage lacked the detailed knowledge necessary to assess the policy. We also suspect that many in Congress who voted for the rollback were equally in the dark. But people seemed pretty confident. Such collective delusions illustrate both the power and the deep flaw of human thinking. It is remarkable that large groups of people can coalesce around a common belief when few of them individually possess the requisite knowledge to support it. This is how we discovered the Higgs boson and increased the human life span by 30 years in the last century. But the same underlying forces explain why we can come to believe outrageous things, which can lead to equally consequential but disastrous outcomes. That individual ignorance is our natural state is a bitter pill to swallow. But if we take this medicine, it can be empowering. It can help us differentiate the questions that merit real investigation from those that invite a reactive and superficial analysis. It also can prompt us to demand expertise and nuanced analysis from our leaders, which is the only tried and true way to make effective policy. A better understanding of how little is actually inside our own heads would serve us well.

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Ted Cruz did not disclose 2012 Senate campaign loan: NY Times

(Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz failed to disclose to the Federal Election Commission a loan from Goldman Sachs for as much as $500,000 that was used to help finance his successful 2012 U.S. Senate campaign, the New York Times reported on Wednesday. The loan does not appear in reports the Ted Cruz for Senate Committee filed with the FEC, in which candidates are required to disclose the source of money they borrow to finance their campaigns, the newspaper reported. Other campaigns have been fined for failing to make such disclosures, which are intended to inform voters and prevent candidates from receiving special treatment from lenders, the Times said. Cruz has surged in recent opinion polls and now leads billionaire businessman Donald Trump in Iowa, which on Feb. 1 holds the first contest in the process to choose the Republican nominee for the November presidential election. In 2012, Cruz was campaigning for the Texas Senate seat as a populist firebrand who criticized Wall Street bailouts and the influence of big banks in Washington, and the loans could have conveyed the wrong impression about his candidacy, the Times said. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday after a campaign event in Dorchester, South Carolina, Cruz called the failure to disclose the loans to the FEC a “technical and inadvertent filing error.” “Those loans have been disclosed over and over and over again on multiple filings. If it was the case that they were not filed exactly as the FEC requires, then we’ll amend the filings. But all of the information has been public and transparent for many years,” he said. Catherine Frazier, a spokeswoman for Cruz, said Cruz had taken out the Goldman Sachs loan against his own assets and had paid off the loan in full. Cruz and his wife, Heidi, who is on leave as a managing director at Goldman Sachs, also received a loan from Citibank for up to $500,000, but it was not clear whether that money was used in the campaign, the newspaper said. There was no evidence the Cruzes got a break on their bank loans, which were disclosed in personal financial statements filed with the U.S. Senate, according to the newspaper.

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Saudi deputy governor killed in helicopter crash near Yemen

RIYADH (Reuters) - The deputy governor of Saudi Arabia s southern Asir province and several colleagues were killed in a helicopter crash on Sunday, Saudi state TV Ekhbariya reported. Local newspaper Okaz reported the helicopter went down while the officials were taking a tour of an area near the coast in Asir, which borders Yemen. The reports did not elaborate on the cause of the crash.

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Democratic debate: Fact-checking the candidates

Washington (CNN) The Democratic candidates for president gathered in Las Vegas for their first debate Tuesday, and CNN's Reality Check team spent the night putting their statements and assertions to the test. The team of reporters, researchers and editors across CNN listened throughout the debate, selecting key statements and then rating them: True; Mostly True; True, but Misleading; False; or It's Complicated. Reality check: Martin O'Malley says U.S. has "failed" to invest in overseas human intelligence O'Malley said, "We have failed as a country to invest in the human intelligence that would allow us to not only make better decisions in Libya, but better decisions in Syria today. It's a huge national security failing." Given the opacity of the available data, it is difficult to issue a verdict on O'Malley's statement, but it is possible to provide some context to what he claims. The National Intelligence Program requests congressional funding for the intelligence-gathering activities of six federal departments, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. As a matter of policy, the government does not disclose information about the budget of the NIP beyond the aggregate, or "top-line" amount requested and the amount approved by Congress. The most recent year for which data on the approved congressional appropriation for the NIP is available is FY 2014. The aggregate amount approved for the year ending March 2015 was $50.5 billion. This amount represents a 3% increase over the previous year, which saw an annual NIP appropriation of $49.0 billion, partially due to reductions associated with the sequester. The amount appropriated in FY 2012, the year during which the attack took place on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, was $53.9 billion, the second-highest appropriation during the decade 2005-2014. In August 2013, The Washington Post obtained documents from former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden regarding the previously undisclosed $52.6 billion FY 2013 budget, and providing a level of detail that had never been released on a previous U.S. intelligence budget. The documents indicated that the United States has 107,035 employees in the intelligence community. Of these, the largest employer of civilian intelligence officials is the CIA, which had the equivalent of 21,459 full-time civilian employees. According to the leaked documents, in FY 2013, "human intelligence operations," consisting of "clandestine acquisition" of documents and other material, "collection by personnel in diplomatic and consular posts" and "official contacts with foreign governments" comprised an annual budget of $3.6 billion. While specific data on human intelligence operations is not available for other years, CNN military analyst Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling notes that the government has cut human intelligence operations relative to other forms of intelligence collection, fueling a major debate in the intelligence community since the 1990s. An additional obstacle to effective human intelligence gathering is the lack of racial diversity within the CIA's own ranks, according to CIA Director John Brennan. Minorities make up less than 24% of the CIA workforce, and only 10.8% of its top senior intelligence service. Brennan noted that, in many of the countries that are the focus of the CIA's current work, it is harder for white employees, and easier for many minorities, to operate covertly. Chafee said: "We just spent half a billion dollars arming and training soldiers, the rebel soldiers in Syria, they quickly joined the other side." The Obama administration recently announced it was going to suspend the train and equip program in Syria and not take on new recruits while they assessed how to better to improve on the program. To be sure, the program faced many challenges despite the near $500 million price tag. In testimony last month, U.S. Central Command Commander Gen. Lloyd Austin said only "four or five" graduates of the program were on the battlefield at that time, nine months after the program began. An initial group of 54 rebels that had been put into northern Syria this summer came under attack by al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra and ceased to function as a fighting force, the Pentagon said last month. At least five of those forces were captured by al Nusra but their fate is not clear. Pentagon officials told CNN in August that some of those rebels got stuck in Turkey and never actually crossed the border into Syria, while others just simply ran away after coming under attack and never came back to regroup with their unit. And then U.S. officials confirmed last month that coalition-issued pickup trucks and ammunition had fallen into the hands of al Qaeda-linked forces in Syria. But rather than evidence of rebels joining the other side, that equipment was given up in order to gain "safe passage," according to Central Command spokesman Col. Patrick Ryder. To suggest that all graduates of the program defected from their ranks to groups opposing the U.S.-led coalition is not true. Reality check: Did Hillary Clinton not have a position on Keystone? Clinton said she never had a position on the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline before she said last month that she would oppose it. "I never took a position on Keystone until I took a position on Keystone," she said. But as a member of the Obama administration, the then-secretary of state indicated she was likely to support it -- though she never said so explicitly. "We haven't finish all of the analysis," Clinton told the Commonwealth Club in October 2010. "So as I say, we've not yet signed off on it. But we are inclined to do so and we are for several reasons." Over the next five years, Clinton would repeatedly decline to say what her opinion was while the Obama administration studied the project. Last month she finally said, "I oppose it." O'Malley made the pitch Tuesday night that he could do better than all the promises made by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and others because he had already pushed those priorities into law when he was governor. "We raised the minimum wage, passed the living wage, invested more in infrastructure, went four years in a row without a penny's increase for college tuition," O'Malley said. He also increased spending on roads and capital projects and succeeded, after many years of failed attempts, in increasing the state's gas tax to pay for those improvements. Clinton said, "I did say when I was secretary of state three years ago that I hoped it would be the gold standard. It was just finally negotiated last week and in looking at it, it did not meet my standards." Negotiations on the TPP trade agreement began while Clinton was secretary of state, but the significant details were worked out after she left that office. In fact, Clinton did not say she "hoped" the TPP would be the gold standard, at the time she said the deal set the gold standard. "This TPP sets the gold standard in trade agreements to open free, transparent, fair trade, the kind of environment that has the rule of law and a level playing field," Clinton said at an event in Australia in 2012. "And when negotiated, this agreement will cover 40 percent of the world's total trade and build in strong protections for workers and the environment." Nearly three years have passed, and Clinton has been out of office for most of that time as talks have proceeded on the important details of the deal. As such, it is reasonable for Clinton to claim that the deal has changed since she supported it and was involved in its negotiation. However, in some ways, the deal has strengthened over the years in areas that Clinton has cited as key concerns. Clinton now says the deal doesn't do enough to address currency manipulation. But the deal didn't include clear language on that topic in 2013 either, when critics in Congress were calling for it to be added. She also says she is concerned about the benefits the deal gives to pharmaceutical companies -- which are strengthened under TPP, but less than they would have been under the deal in its 2013 state. VERDICT: Clinton's claim she said she "hoped" TPP would be the gold standard is false. She said it was the gold standard and fully supported the negotiations. Her broader point about the deal changing since she left office is True, but Misleading. The deal has changed in the past three years, but in some instances those changes have improved the very deficiencies she cites. CNN's Anderson Cooper grilled Sanders repeatedly on whether he was protecting gun manufacturers from lawsuits. After some explaining, Sanders landed on a simple answer: "Of course not." Sanders has been nailed by liberals and his Democratic opponents for his positions on gun control, including his decision to vote against the Brady bill and for allowing Amtrak riders to bring guns in checked bags. And his comment during the debate sounded like a sharp stance in favor of clamping down on gun manufacturers, defending his vote to shield them from litigation as part of a "large and complicated bill." "Where you have manufacturers and where you have gun shops knowingly giving guns to criminals or aiding and abetting that, of course we should take action," he said Tuesday night. But in a July interview with CNN, Sanders sounded starkly different, saying that gun manufacturers could not be held responsible. The sole difference was that in that interview Sanders did not say the manufacturer was aware of the crime that would later be committed. "If somebody has a gun and it falls into the hands of a murderer and that murderer kills somebody with the gun, do you hold the gun manufacturer responsible?" he asked. "Not any more than you would hold a hammer company responsible if somebody beats somebody over the head with a hammer. That is not what a lawsuit should be about." Reality check: Bernie Sanders said, "African-American youth unemployment is 51%, Hispanic youth unemployment is 36%. It seems to me instead of building more jails and providing more incarceration maybe just maybe we should be putting money into education and jobs for our kids." There is certainly an employment crisis among minority youth. But as he has done in the past, Sanders may have misspoken when he cited those statistics. The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute has found that 51.3% of black and 36.1% Hispanic high school graduates, age 17 to 20, are underemployed. That means they either don't have a job, aren't working as many hours as they would like or aren't currently looking for work but would like a job. The comparable number for whites is 33.8%. The official unemployment rate for black youth, age 16 to 24, was 20.7%. For Hispanic youth, it's 12.7%, while for white youth, it's 10.3%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The government data is not limited to high school graduates and has a wider age range. Reality check: Hillary Clinton said, "We have to look at the fact that we lose 90 people a day from gun violence. This has gone on too long and it's time the entire country stood up against the NRA." According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 33,636 people killed by firearms in 2013, the last full year for which data is available. That averages to about 92 people a day. However, the number includes suicides, unintentional deaths, and incidents with undetermined intent as well as violence-related firearm deaths (homicide and legal intervention). In 2013, 11,675 people were killed in violence-related deaths by homicide or legal intervention, which equates to almost 32 deaths a day. The CDC reports 505 unintentional deaths by firearms in 2013, or just more than one death per day. They also report 281 deaths where the intent was undetermined in 2013. Ninety-two people did die each day in 2013 from a firearm injury. However, the number of people killed from violence-related homicides and legal interventions in 2013 was much lower -- about 32 deaths a day. Reality check: Bernie Sanders said, "It is wrong today in a rigged economy that 57% of all new income is going to the top 1%." The top 1% saw their incomes soar 27.1% during that time period, while the bottom 99% got an only 4.3% bump in income. Healthy stock market returns helped fuel income gains among the wealthy. But the good news for the bottom 99% was that 2014 was the first year of real recovery from Great Recession losses. That's thanks to a drop in the unemployment rate from 6.6% at the start of 2014 to 5.6% by year's end.

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NATO launches Black Sea force as latest counter to Russia

CRAIOVA, Romania (Reuters) - NATO launched a new multinational force in Romania on Monday to counter Russia along its eastern flank and to check a growing Russian presence in the Black Sea following the Kremlin s 2014 seizure of Crimea. The force will initially be built around a Romanian brigade of up to 4,000 soldiers, supported by troops from nine other NATO countries, and complementing a separate deployment of 900 U.S. troops who are already in place. The plans are to include additional air and sea assets to give the force greater capabilities. Our purpose is peace, not war, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis told the NATO Parliamentary Assembly of alliance lawmakers, which is meeting this year in Bucharest. We are not a threat for Russia. But we need dialogue from a strong position of defense and discouragement, he said, before flying to the Craiova military base in south-eastern Romania. At the base, as military bands played, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg stood alongside Iohannis, addressed some of the troops in green face paint and inspected vehicles and weapons. We are sending a very clear message: NATO is here, NATO is strong and NATO is united, Stoltenberg told assembled Polish, Romanian, Spanish and Portuguese soldiers. Russia accuses NATO of trying to encircle it and threatening stability in Eastern Europe, which NATO denies. Around the Black Sea, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey are NATO members while Georgia and Ukraine aspire to join. The NATO force aims to develop its presence in the Black Sea region, rich in oil and gas, without escalating tensions as it seeks to counter Russia s own plans to create what military analysts say is a buffer zone . The 2008 Russian operation to put troops in Georgia s South Ossetia region, its support for separatists in eastern Ukraine since 2014 and its annexation of Crimea have raised the stakes, with all sides warning of a new, Cold-War style scenario. Apart from Romania, Poland is the biggest troop contributor. Bulgaria, Italy and Portugal will train regularly with the force in Craiova, and Germany is also expected to contribute. In additional to existing NATO Black Sea naval patrols, a maritime presence will include more allied visits to Romanian and Bulgarian ports, training and exercises. Britain is deploying fighter planes to Romania. Canada is already helping to patrol Romanian air space, and Italian planes are helping patrol over Bulgaria. Some Eastern Europeans want NATO s new ballistic missile defense shield, which includes a site in Romania, to be part of NATO s eastern posture vis-a-vis Russia. The Aegis Ashore system would add another level of deterrence, said Maciej Kowalski, an analyst at the Polish Casimir Pulaski Foundation, referring to the U.S.-built system. NATO says the system is to intercept any Iranian rockets. As in the Baltics and Poland, where the U.S.-led alliance has some 4,000 troops, NATO says the relatively light multinational model recalls allied support for West Berlin in the 1950s, when the presence of British, French and U.S. forces ensured the Soviet Union could not control all of Berlin. Under NATO s founding treaty, an attack on one ally is an attack on all, meaning all 28 NATO nations would be required to respond in the case of any potential Russian aggression. While months in planning, the establishment of the force comes as Russia winds down its biggest war games since 2013. The Zapad, or West, games showed off Moscow s latest weaponry and its ability to quickly mass forces on NATO s borders. The enhanced NATO presence in Romania and Bulgaria marks a diplomatic success for Bucharest, which gained greater persuasive power because it is set to reach a NATO goal of spending 2 percent of economic output on defense this year, a priority for U.S. President Donald Trump. Romania pushed for bigger NATO naval presence on the Black Sea for more than a year, but found its neighbor Bulgaria wary of provoking Russia. Turkey supports only limited NATO reinforcements, concerned about breaking international rules limiting the scale of patrols in the Black Sea. Turkey has played down the extent of Russia s militarization of Crimea, which NATO says involves deploying surface-to-air missiles and communications jamming equipment.

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Republicans join push to lift secrecy around misconduct in Congress

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Prominent Republican senators on Thursday embraced a push to overhaul rules for addressing sexual harassment in the U.S. Congress, signing on to a bill that would protect victims and require lawmakers to pay for their own settlements. The legislation builds on demands to lift the veil of secrecy around sexual harassment and misconduct on Capitol Hill, and has gained steam in recent months as a wave of women have come forward with accusations against prominent American men in politics, media and entertainment. The bipartisan push signaled momentum in the Republican-led U.S. Congress for overhauling a process for handling misconduct allegations that many lawmakers say is antiquated and stacked against victims. The Senate bill, called the Congressional Harassment Reform Act, draws from proposals that Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Representative Jackie Speier, both Democrats, have been developing. “Congress is really behind the eight-ball. I think that, in many respects, the private sector has acted more swiftly than we have in terms of addressing sexual harassment,” Speier said in an interview. High-profile Republican senators co-sponsoring the bill include John Cornyn, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican; Ted Cruz; Joni Ernst and Lisa Murkowski. The legislation would require any member of Congress found liable for harassment to pay settlements themselves, rather than with taxpayer funds, as the current process allows. “Congress is not above the laws, and secret settlements with taxpayer money to cover up harassment should no longer be tolerated,” Cruz said in a statement. Settlements would be made public automatically unless victims choose to keep them private. Outrage over sexual misconduct in politics helped to fuel an upset victory by Democrat Doug Jones in the U.S. Senate race in deeply conservative Alabama on Tuesday. Voters rejected the Republican candidate in the race, Roy Moore, who had been accused by multiple women of pursuing them when they were teenagers and he was in his 30s, including one woman who said he tried to initiate sexual contact with her when she was 14. Moore denied the allegations but many prominent Republicans distanced themselves from Moore, although President Donald Trump backed him. In Washington, allegations of sexual misconduct prompted the resignations last week of three lawmakers - Democratic Senator Al Franken, Democratic Representative John Conyers and Republican Representative Trent Franks. On Tuesday, Republican Representative Blake Farenthold said he would not seek re-election in November. Politico reported that the congressional Office of Compliance had paid $84,000 from a public fund on behalf of Farenthold to settle a sexual harassment claim in 2015. Reuters has been unable to verify the allegations against Farenthold, who has said that the charges were false and has denied wrongdoing. The 1995 law governing the process for complaints in Congress - created in the wake of a harassment scandal - has been criticized as ineffective. The lengthy and cumbersome process requires victims to go through mandatory mediation and requires complete secrecy. “It created a protective blanket around the harasser and left the victim out in the cold,” Speier said. Speier, who has worked on the issue since 2014, came forward in October with her own story of unwanted sexual contact from the chief of staff for the lawmaker she worked for as a congressional aide. “He kissed me and stuck his tongue in my mouth,” said Speier, who has become a resource from women seeking advice on how to handle similar situations. “When it happened to me, it disgusted me. I kind of recoiled.” Speier’s proposals for reforms have attracted support from more than 100 members, including 19 Republicans. A group of conservative Republicans have championed a separate bill focused on banning the use of taxpayer dollars for settlements, and requiring past settlements to be disclosed and reimbursed. “What we do agree is that taxpayers should not be on the hook for misbehavior and for those settlements that are made,” said Marsha Blackburn, a Republican representative who has advocated for the proposal. “We need to use that to make certain that workplaces are respectful,” Blackburn said in an interview. A House committee is reviewing reforms with an eye to making recommendations in coming weeks. “I think that what we are doing is taking the best of all the ideas out there and putting them into one package,” a senior House Republican aide said.

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U.S. Behind Huge Weapons Shipments To Saudi Arabia Prior to Yemen Funeral Attack

The United States shipped hundreds of millions of dollars in weapons to Saudi Arabia just weeks prior to the Saudi-led coalition’s funeral bombing in Sanaa, Yemen, according to a new analysis of U.S. government data conducted by Shadowproof. The October 8 bombing killed 140 and wounded over 500. It was widely condemned by human rights groups and exposed U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen to greater scrutiny. In response to a query from Shadowproof about the funeral strike, State Department spokesperson Frankie Sturm replied, “ We have regularly expressed our concerns to the Saudi-led coalition, and urged them – as we have urged all sides, including the Houthis – to take all feasible measures to mitigate harm to civilians and civilian objects and return to a cessation of hostilities .” Despite the US government’s purported desire for a “cessation of hostilities” and “concerns” for civilians, Shadowproof’s analysis shows that large quantities of U.S. weapons continue to flow to the Saudi government, impeding a sustained ceasefire and enabling civilian carnage. In July and August, the U.S. shipped Saudi $8.8 million in bombs, $47.3 million in parts for bombs, 313 guided missiles worth $26 million, one military helicopter worth $15.7 million, and 334 armored fighting vehicles and 19 armored vehicles, which together are worth over $197 million. From April to July, when peace talks were active, the U.S. shipped $50 million in armored vehicles and $82 million in parts for bombs. Talks broke down in July and were followed by a major increase in coalition air assaults in Yemen. Following the attack on a funeral, the U.S. government announced it was “ reviewing ” its support for the Saudi coalition; however, as of October 10 , there were no changes to U.S. military support for coalition operations. A UN-brokered ceasefire implemented in April ushered in a major reduction in fighting. Yet, U.S. weapons shipments continued. In fact, over the course of President Barack Obama’s administration, it has approved a staggering $115 billion in weapons sales to Saudi Arabia—including a $1.29 billion sale in November 2015, which included over 19,000 bombs and a $1.15 billion sale of tank components, ammunition, and other weapons. The U.S. government has also provided logistical and intelligence support that has facilitated the Saudi coalition’s carnage. Given Saudi’s dependence on the U.S. government for military support, it is difficult to overstate the degree of influence the U.S possesses over the Saudi government. For example, Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution said in April, “If the United States of America and the United Kingdom tonight told King Salman that this war has to end, it would end tomorrow.” Kristine Beckerle, who researches Yemen for Human Rights Watch, told Shadowproof, “The Saudi-led coalition’s air campaign in Yemen has been devastating for civilians, hitting marketplaces, factories, homes and hospitals. There is no question US weapons have been used in some of these unlawful attacks, including one of the most deadly. The US should be suspending arms sales to Saudi, until it not only curbs unlawful strikes but also credibly investigates those that have already occurred.” A survey conducted by the Yemen Data Project found that, from the beginning of the Saudi coalition’s air campaign in Yemen in March 2015, through August of 2016, more than one-third of the coalition’s 8,600 strikes hit non-military targets. “The coalition is responsible for twice as many civilian casualties as all other forces put together, virtually all as a result of air strikes,” UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said back in March. Nasser Arrabyee, a journalist in Sanaa, told Shadowproof, “In the first weeks of the war the battle for Sanna was over, all the military sites were destroyed, yet the coalition strikes continue on a daily basis, often hitting civilians.” The U.S. government continues to insist the Saudi coalition isn’t intentionally targeting civilians, but Colette Gadenne, who heads Médecins Sans Frontières’ (MSF) Yemen mission told Shadowproof, “We’ve seen airstrikes hit civilian locations so often. For example, there was a strike on a crowded marketplace in Harad at 8 pm on July 4. It took place after people broke their Ramadan fast. And we only know about the strikes we see directly.” Three MSF hospitals, one MSF mobile clinic, and an MSF ambulance were attacked by coalition forces. After the funeral attack, images appeared on social media allegedly showing fragments of a U.S-supplied tail fin for a JDAM guidance kit for a U.S-made Mark 82 500 lb. bomb. Ali Al-Ahmed, an expert on Saudi Arabia at the Institute for Gulf Affairs and himself a Saudi, told Shadowproof the Saudis indeed target civilians. “They couldn’t defeat [the Houthis] on the battlefield so they’re killing women and children, bombing schools, to get that result,” Ahmed explained. Back in 2010, U.S. Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning disclosed a State Department cable from the same year that showed the U.S. government provided “imagery” of the Yemen border to the Saudi government, despite evidence Saudi aircraft were attacking civilians when attacking Houthis in northern Yemen. Assistant Minister of Defense and Aviation Prince Khaled bin Sultan appealed to a U.S. ambassador to give them a Predator drone to help limit civilian casualties. Another cable from 2009 that was also disclosed by Manning shows the U.S. government approved military assistance for Saudi Arabia or Yemen if aid was not used against Houthis. Since then, the U.S. government has allowed the Saudi Kingdom to pull them into an open-ended war. With regard to al Qaida, Ahmed noted, “Hundreds of Saudi jets and their allies bombing Yemeni forces have avoided bombing…positions in Yemen of al Qaida.” “The Saudi air force is really becoming the air force for al-Qaida,” Ahmed said. “The Saudi bombings have helped mostly one group: al-Qaida.” Ahmed also stressed the bombings fuel “anti-Americanism.” Prior to the war, the Yemeni government cooperated closely with the U.S. in counterterrorism matters. In a letter to President Obama, 36 members of congress urged him to block the $1.15 billion arms deal announced in August. The letter stated, “Amnesty International has documented at least 33 unlawful airstrikes by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition across Yemen that appear to have deliberately targeted civilians and civilians facilities, such as hospitals, schools, markets, and places of worship. These attacks may amount to war crimes.” According to a recent report by Reuters, the coalition has hit sites the U.S. government put on a “do not strike” list. The U.S. designated these locations as being vital infrastructure for delivery of food aid and for post-war reconstruction. The Saudi coalition declared as a target the entire Saada Governorate (measuring 4,000 square miles), which borders Saudi Arabia. It also reportedly used incendiary weapons, white phosphorous, as well as cluster weapons, which are banned by most countries. Both of these weapons were supplied by the U.S. The war’s effect on civilians in Yemen is enormous. “The jets overhead scare the children. There is no place people can go to be safe, even hospitals are hit in strikes. The population is traumatized,” Gadenne said. More than 10,000 civilians have been killed since the Saudi-led coalition began, including more than 1,000 children. More than 80 percent of the population now requires some form of humanitarian assistance for survival. Beatriz Ochoa from Save the Children told Shadowproof, “The number of children that are severely malnourished has doubled to 370,000 since the beginning of the coalition bombing. 1.6 million women and children under 5 are suffering from acute malnutrition with over 14 million, or roughly half of Yemen’s population, are considered food insecure.” The coalition imposed a blockade, which has resulted in shortages of medicine and food, as well as price spikes and hoarding of goods. Recently, there was a reported cholera outbreak, which may exacerbate the already dangerous health crisis. Another serious concern is unexploded ordnance. “A 16-year-old girl was collecting firewood in Sadaa, and there had been an air strike in the area 3 months prior. An unexploded ordnance went off and she lost a leg,” Gadenne recalled. Ms. Gadenne said MSF has seen victims from unexploded ordnance all over the country. Research from Amnesty International found thousands of unexploded munitions in northern Yemen, following a 10-day tour of the region earlier this year. The dire humanitarian crisis resulting from the war has given rise to a great deal of anger in Yemen, according to Arrabyee. “Yemenis see the war as an American war, as the coalition couldn’t carry out the strikes in Yemen without U.S. support. There is a big campaign saying Americans are the ones killing the Yemenis people.” William Hartung from the Center for International Policy told Shadowproof the U.S. is directly involved in Yemen, even if it’s not the one dropping the bombs. “Without U.S. support there’s no way Saudi coalition could wage the war at this level,” Hartung said. “The large weapons deals and mid-flight refueling provided by the U.S. play an important role in Saudi’s ability to conduct strikes in Yemen.” The post U.S. Behind Huge Weapons Shipments To Saudi Arabia Prior to Yemen Funeral Attack appeared first on Shadowproof .

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WATCH: Trump Supporter Gets His A** Handed To Him By CNN On The Air For Lying About Muslim Ban

CNN host Poppy Harlow absolutely humiliated a Republican supporter of Donald Trump for lying about the Muslim ban that Trump ordered on Friday.The immigration ban is currently causing chaos in the United States and around the world, and has been condemned by leaders across the globe, but Trump and his supporters insist that the executive order is working and keeping Americans safe from terrorism.During an appearance on CNN to defend the ban, former GOP Rep. Jack Kingston repeatedly made claims that Harlow fact-checked on the air, and it didn t go well for the congressman. What data can you point to that justifies that these seven nations have a tie to U.S. terror attacks or a higher incidence of bringing terror to this country? Harlow asked.Kingston, of course, blamed the nations, including Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Yemen, Sudan, and Somalia, for forcing Trump s hand because they supposedly don t love America, which is somehow part of the criteria now for who we have dealings with. I think maybe the idea that I would say, the evidence is that the countries themselves don t really have a standard that would preclude enemies of the United States from emigrating here. These are not countries that are known to love the United States of America. But that doesn t explain why countries like Russia, which launched cyberattacks against the United States during the 2016 election, is not on the list. And Harlow made sure she asked. So you say these are not countries that love the United States and therefore this is justified. So, what about Russia? Kingston tried to spin that by claiming that Sudan is a bigger threat to America than Russia. Well, I think in Russia you know, there s a lot of other Islamic countries and other countries that aren t always fond of America, but I don t think you have necessarily the concerns and the vigilance that you need if you re talking about Sudan. After Harlow explained that emigrating into this country is a difficult and complicated process, she dropped the hammer on Kingston with a single question. Congressman, can you point to a single terrorist attack in this country that was carried out by a Syrian refugee? I think you could look at DHS records and see that refugees in general have often been the cloak under which terrorists do move from country to country, Kingston replied. And we do not know who s coming in to our country. Harlow countered Kingston s bullshit by asking the question again. But Congressman, I asked if you could point to an event that you feel justifies this ban, that has endangered or killed American people. This time, Kingston replied by naming places where mass shootings have taken place, including Ft. Hood, Orlando, and San Bernardino, as well as terrorist attacks in Europe and other parts of the world.Harlow called out Kingston for making unfactual claims, and proceeded to inform Kingston that all the shooters who committed massacres in those American cities were all American citizens who were born here. And none of them, including those who committed terrorist attacks in Europe, were Syrian refugees.Here s the video via YouTube.In fact, no citizens from any of the countries listed in Trump s ban have ever murdered an American on our own soil. However, there are nations Trump left off the list that are at least partly responsible for the murders of thousands of Americans, including Saudi Arabia, which helped fund the 9/11 attacks and was the nation from which most of the attackers came.@TomKingTK pic.twitter.com/eT65nfOb5s Rafael Esteban (@RafaelEsteban__) January 28, 2017The bottom line is that Trump and his supporters are lying about the Muslim ban, and as long as the media does what Poppy Harlow did, they ll nail them for it in real time instead of letting them get away with lying on the air only to call them out later. Because at this time, catching them later is too late.Featured image via screen capture from embedded video

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University Of Texas Police Kick Humiliated Nazis Off Campus Before They Could Start Trouble

This is how police should deal with Nazis and white supremacists.The tiki torches were doused early at the University of Texas on Friday night after campus police quickly chased the group of racists off the premises.They were attempting to invade the campus and hold a rally on the Main Mall, which likely would have included Nazi chants and waving Confederate and Nazi flags.But police put a stop to it before the rally could even begin.After police informed the public of the service provided, university president Gregory Fenves released a statement strongly condemning white supremacy. The actions of white supremacists and other hate groups are completely anathema to UT s values, and I abhor what they represent, Fenves said. These are difficult times for our nation, with movements fueled by hatred increasingly taking root, as we saw in Charlottesville and elsewhere. We must continue to denounce these ugly, un-American ideas in the strongest terms. The actions of a hate group do not define us. They never will. White supremacists and Nazis have been emboldened since Donald Trump refused to condemn them in response to the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia earlier this year. Instead, Trump blamed both sides and claimed that a lot of Nazis are fine people. University of Texas president Gregory Fenves said what Trump should have said in the first place.Featured Image: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

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Why Trump’s warning of ‘rigged election’ isn’t credible

Donald Trump keeps saying that voter fraud could cost him the election, a charge that threatens confidence in US elections. But there's no evidence the type of fraud he alleges is rampant. Supporters of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump wait for his arrival at a campaign rally at the University of North Carolina Wilmington on Aug. 9. The GOP presidential nominee claimed Clinton supporters could vote 15 times without a voter ID law. Donald Trump has been claiming, of late, that if he loses in November, it will be because the election was “rigged.” After all, he says, look at the big, enthusiastic crowds he attracts at his events. Of course, massive crowds do not necessarily foretell victory. Often they are more a sign of passion and devotion, or the entertainment value of a candidate, and don’t guarantee success – as Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders saw in his losing battle for the Democratic presidential nomination. Mr. Trump, it appears, is preparing the groundwork to lose, as his poll numbers in key electoral battlegrounds sink. In the meantime, he’s calling on his supporters to register online as volunteer election observers, and in the process is also gathering voter contact information and asking for contributions. So in a way, the “rigged election” cries are just another avenue for voter engagement. But more ominously, Trump threatens to delegitimize the outcome in November, if he loses and convinces his supporters that Hillary Clinton stole the election. That could undermine the very fabric of American democracy. “Something like this is unprecedented, as far as I know – where a major presidential contender openly raises doubts about the legitimacy of an election before the vote, and without any evidence,” says Matthew Kerbel, political science chairman at Villanova University in Pennsylvania. What’s more, it would be “extraordinarily difficult” to rig a presidential election in the way Trump suggests, Professor Kerbel says. “You’re talking about rigging an election in the Electoral College, where you would have to rig a combination of states." Perhaps the biggest protection to US elections is their decentralized nature. The US Constitution and federal law give states broad leeway in how they run elections, resulting in a multitude of voting systems, even within states. So to rig the results of a national election at the ballot box or with absentee ballots, a vast conspiracy would be required. Trump has centered his allegations of planned cheating in a handful of key states. In Pennsylvania, he has bemoaned the fact that the commonwealth does not require a voter to present photo identification to cast a ballot. “We don't want to see people voting five times, folks,” Trump said last Friday in Altoona, Pa. “I don’t even know, maybe you should go down and volunteer or do something. But without voter ID, there's no way you're going to be able to check it properly.” Earlier in the week, in Wilmington, N.C., Trump suggested that Clinton supporters could now vote “15 times” for her, given the federal appeals court ruling last month rejecting the state’s voter ID law. The law, which also ended same-day registration and shortened the state’s early-voting period, had a racially “discriminatory intent,” the ruling said. Trump has also raised the prospect of voter fraud in Ohio, another critical battleground state. But the kind of cheating Trump envisions on a mass scale is virtually impossible to pull off – including in states that don’t require the showing of a photo ID. Even in such states, to vote 10 or 15 times, one would have to go to 10 or 15 different polling places and provide the names and addresses of people who live in those precincts and had not yet voted. The call for “Trump Election Observers” creates the appearance that in-person voter fraud is common. But election experts call the rate of such fraud vanishingly small. In 2014, an investigation by Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, found only 31 credible incidents of voter impersonation out of 1 billion votes cast in the US between 2000 and 2014. To put that number in perspective, someone is more than three times more likely to win the jackpot in Pennsylvania's Cash 5 lottery as they are to have impersonated another voter. What’s more, Professor Levitt points out, people in states with voter ID laws did not have greater confidence in the integrity of their elections than voters in states without such laws. “The factor that really influences whether people think the elections are fair? Whether their preferred candidates win,” Levitt writes. Another issue for the Trump campaign is the matter of a 1982 court order that limits the Republican National Committee’s ability to challenge the eligibility of voters at polling places. The order bars the RNC “and its agents” from engaging in voter intimidation, especially in areas with large minority populations. The Trump campaign could plausibly be judged “an agent” of the RNC, says election law expert Rick Hasen of the University of California at Irvine, and thus the Trump observers’ activities could risk violating the order. And that, he says, could extend the order beyond its Dec. 1, 2017, expiration. Trump’s warnings of a rigged election could have another offshoot: suppressing his own vote. One recent poll shows a decline in the likelihood that Trump supporters will turn out, a trend that election data guru Nate Silver suggests may be linked to Trump’s message about fraud. In addition, a recent experiment by two academics suggested that the message of a “rigged election” was less effective at mobilizing voters than a more positive message, “registering is quick, easy, and free.” Trump voters already appear primed to believe that if he loses in November, it will be because the election was rigged. A Bloomberg poll released last week found that 34 percent of all voters, and 56 percent of Trump voters, believe the election results will be rigged. In a poll of North Carolina voters last week by the Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling, fully 69 percent of Trump supporters said they believed that if Clinton wins the election, it will be because the election was rigged. Of course, American history is replete with examples of election hanky-panky over the years, including ballots being cast by dead people. The contested presidential election of 2000, which boiled down to a 537-vote margin in Florida and ultimately a ruling by the Supreme Court, remains a hotly debated episode. In 2004, some Democrats were convinced that their nominee, John Kerry, was the victim of voter fraud in Ohio – a state that, had he won, would have handed him the election. What’s different now is that Trump’s charges are being leveled well before Election Day. And he’s not even focused on what could pose a real threat to the integrity of American elections: hackers. “There’s vital interest in our election process,” Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said at a Monitor breakfast Aug. 3. "We’re actively thinking about the election and cybersecurity right now." In a phone call Monday, Secretary Johnson offered federal assistance to state officials in managing the risk to voting systems. For Trump, the claim that fraud could swing the election is losing its salience, as his poll numbers head south. Irregularities matter only in a close election, and as of now, it’s not looking close. But no one is calling the election over, and the “rigged election” argument isn't going away.

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Conservative Supreme Court Ruling Just Gave The Oil Companies A Big Win

In what is considered a massive set-back not just to Obama s environmental policy, but to the very planet we live on, the Supreme Court just killed the best chance America had to combat climate change in the foreseeable future. And if you think this wasn t politically motivated the five Justices responsible all come from the right side of the bench.In a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court ruled to stay the requirements that energy companies needed to rein in the ludicrous amount of carbon that they were pouring into the atmosphere. For decades, scientists have warned that this carbon is among the number one contributors to global warming. Obama had hoped to address this with a landmark move to curtail these emissions with an initiative he named the Clean Power Plan. With strong but achievable standards for power plants, and customized goals for states to cut the carbon pollution that is driving climate change, the Clean Power Plan provides national consistency, accountability and a level playing field while reflecting each state s energy mix. It also shows the world that the United States is committed to leading global efforts to address climate change.Or not.Instead, America s right-wing showed the world once again that it is not remotely serious about trying to combat climate change. Naturally, this lack of initiative gives other major polluters like China a fantastic excuse to not curtail their own emissions. We will, when you do, they might say.For now, the oil and gas companies get to ignore the rule. This is a major victory for the corporations that are most responsible for polluting in the first place. The Koch brothers, of course, were vehemently opposed to the new plans. So too were the Republican politicians they sponsor. How desperate were Republicans to let their pollution-heavy friends off the hook? Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell broke with all existing protocol to deliver a letter to all 50 United States governors telling them to simply ignore Obama s EPA requirements altogether.The four liberal justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan all wrote that they objected to the stay.But if all of this shady monkey wrench tossing is giving you a sense of hopeless, the silver lining is this: All that is standing in the way of bold new plans like this becoming law are five aging conservative members of the Supreme Court. It s expected that the next president will get to appoint at least two new Justices. The ability to change the course of not just America s, but the world s climate rests with who Americans chose as their next president this year. That s a lot of power. Let s use it to elect a person who has our interests in mind, not the Koch brothers.Feature image from YouTube

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Destruction of US Abrams Tank: Mosul Offensive Good for General Dynamics

By Kurt Nimmo, Blacklisted News In the video below the “folk hero” of the Iraqi Counter-Terror Services and regular Iraqi army takes a direct hit in the battle for Mosul. The destruction of an Abrams tank by a Russian ATGM Kornet missile is good news if you’re a stockholder in General Dynamics Land Systems, formerly Chrysler Defense. General Dynamics makes the Abrams battle tank. Each one costs $9 million. The US will simply ship another tank to replace the one destroyed along with its presumed Iraqi crew. Iraqi lives are a cheap commodity, so it will not be a problem to find another expendable tank crew. Back in 2012 former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond Odierno testified to Congress that the Army has more than enough tanks. He suggested the line at General Dynamics be shut down temporarily. “Our tank fleet is two and a half years old on average now. We’re in good shape and these are additional tanks that we don’t need,” he said. Congress budgeted more money for new tanks anyway. Rep. Mac Thornberry, a Texas Republican and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said more tanks were needed in Europe to confront Vladimir Putin. Military readiness is a “consumable,” said Maj. Gen. Thomas A. Horlander, the Army’s budget director. Military hardware is “cumulative,” according to the Pentagon. On Tuesday General Dynamics stock opened at $151.21 and closed at $152.59. Last week the corporation was awarded a $170 million contract for an air-to-ground rocket system. Earlier this month General Dynamics was awarded a $900 million contract over five years to provide engineering and technical services for major weapon systems, program technical assistance, support systems requirements and assist with production decision-making and program controls, according to MarketWatch . The United States is the largest producer and exporter of weapons in the world. The US armed forces budget topped out over $600 billion in 2015. U.S. Military Budgets 1948-2015 Obama FY2010-15 $663.4 billion per year Bush Jr FY2002-09* $634.9

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Penn State Trustee Bows Out of Election After Disparaging Sandusky Victims - Breitbart

A Penn State Trustee has dropped his bid and resigned his position after disparaging the Sandusky victims by calling them the “ victims” of former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky. [Trustee Al Lord bowed out of his bid after being quoted in an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education. In the piece, Lord exclaimed that he is, “Running out of sympathy for 35 yr old, victims with net worth. Do not understand why they were so prominent in trial. As you learned, Graham Spanier never knew Sandusky abused anyone. ” Lord, the former CEO of student loan company Sallie Mae, was commenting on Graham Spanier’s conviction on child endangerment charges. The former Penn State President was convicted on March 24 for his handling of a 2001 complaint against Sandusky, the school’s defensive coordinator, PennLive. com reports. Sandusky was convicted on 45 counts of sexual abuse charges and is now serving a prison sentence. Despite the conviction and vindication of the many victims of abuse, Lord proclaimed himself “tired” of hearing about the victims. “I am tired of victims getting in the way of clearer thinking and a reasoned approach to who knew what and who did what,” Lord said in the interview with the Chronicle. Lord tried to walk back the comments by issuing a statement apologizing for “any pain the comment may have caused actual victims. ” But, during a recent forum sponsored by Penn Staters for Responsible Stewardship, Lord finally decided that his effectiveness to the school had essentially been destroyed by his comments, and he decided to drop his bid for . Lord also resigned from his position and will not serve out the final months of his current term. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com.

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Strong chances of Brexit no deal, but UK government may collapse: Scottish minister

EDINBURGH (Reuters) - Scotland s Brexit minister believes there is a pretty strong chance Britain will leave the European Union with no deal, but that the UK government could collapse before then. Michael Russell said the devolved pro-independence Scottish administration is trying to prepare for Brexit, despite Scots having voted against it, but possible outcomes are legion . I think the chances (Brexit) happens without an agreement are still pretty strong, that there will a crashing out, Russell, who is heading Scottish Brexit talks with the UK government, told Reuters. It is also distinctly possible (...) that the government will fall and there will be another election or another government will come in, he added. British Prime Minister Theresa May is running a minority Conservative government, kept in power by a Northern Irish Protestant party. Russel said it was unclear what any new government might do. Will it start negotiations afresh, what will be its mandate, what will it be negotiating for? Russell said, describing his frustration with the process and its uncertainty. Britain s vote to leave the EU has divided the main parties over what new relationship it wants with the trading bloc after 40 years of shared ties. It has also strained the ties of the UK s four nations, because Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to keep EU membership while Wales and most-populous England voted to leave. On key issues, such as the set-up of powers devolved beyond London s parliament after Brexit and the need for fluid EU immigration, Edinburgh s Scottish nationalist administration is at loggerheads with the Conservative UK government in London. Earlier on Wednesday, Britain s First Secretary of State Damian Green said Britain believes no deal is very unlikely but was readying contingency plans just in case. As recently as Tuesday, the UK s Brexit Minister David Davis said Britain was ready to walk away with no deal. If we leave without a deal, we have to look at whether there will be democratic legitimacy in that, how would that be confirmed. Would (Britain s parliament) accept that we leave without a deal? I think that s unlikely in its present composition, said Russell, whose formal title is Minister for UK Negotiations on Scotland s Place in Europe. Russell described Brexit as the existential threat to Scotland s future and said his government was preparing, to the extent that it could, for all options regarding Brexit. For that reason, he argued, Scotland should be offered a new choice which might include independence from the UK rejected by Scottish voters in 2014 by a 10 percentage point margin once it is clear what Brexit means. At some stage the people of Scotland will have to be asked whether they want to stay with something which is completely disastrous and will not produce a good result, of that I have no doubt, or whether we do something else, he said. In a June general election Russell s Scottish National Party suffered heavy losses - albeit from a very high level - and was forced to withdraw its offer of a new independence referendum as a result.

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U.S. top court declines to revive North Dakota abortion limits

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected North Dakota’s bid to revive a restrictive Republican-backed law struck down by a lower court that would ban most abortions once a fetal heartbeat can be detected, as early as six weeks after conception. The court turned away the state’s appeal, leaving in place a July 2015 ruling by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that blocked the 2013 law. North Dakota’s law was among the strictest of a series of statutes passed at the state level imposing limits on abortion. The law was challenged by North Dakota’s only abortion clinic, the Red River Women’s Clinic in Fargo. In a separate case, the high court is due to hear arguments on March 2 in a challenge by abortion providers to parts of a restrictive, Republican-backed Texas law they contend are aimed at shutting clinics that perform the procedure. It will be the court’s first abortion case since 2007. In the North Dakota case, the appeals court had said it was bound in its ruling by U.S. Supreme Court precedent on abortion, which holds that states may not prohibit abortions before a fetus reaches viability. But the appeals court said “good reasons exist” for the high court to re-evaluate its past abortion decisions in light of medical and scientific advances that show the concept of viability is subject to change. Republican backers of the North Dakota law had said 40 years of medical advancements should not be ignored. Opponents said a ban at six weeks would mean abortion would be outlawed at a gestation time when many women do not yet even know they are pregnant. On Jan. 19, the high court refused to hear a similar case in which Arkansas sought to revive a Republican-backed law also blocked by lower courts that would ban abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy. The high court legalized abortion in 1973, but abortion remains a contentious issue among Americans. Some states, particularly those governed by Republicans, have sought to chip away at a woman’s right to end a pregnancy by passing laws imposing a number of restrictions. Viability, according to medical experts, occurs around 23 to 24 weeks into a pregnancy. Lawmakers in North Dakota, Arkansas and other conservative states have sought to ban abortions at an earlier stage, citing among other things hotly debated medical research suggesting a fetus feels pain starting at 20 weeks of gestation. The North Dakota case was 15-627, Stenehjem v. MKB Management, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 15-627.

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McCain to Trump: Don`t You Dare Make Peace with Russia!

Written by Daniel McAdams Tuesday November 15, 2016 Sit down. This is going to shock you. (Not). We reported yesterday on the telephone call between US president-elect Trump and Russian president Putin, where the current and future presidents discussed the need to set aside differences and look to more constructive future relations. With serious observers of this past year's increasing tensions between US and Russia openly worrying about a nuclear war breaking out, with some 300,000 NATO troops placed on Russia's border, with sanctions hurting average businesspersons on both sides, a normal person might look at the slight thaw in Cold War 2.0 as an early positive indicator of the end of the Obama Era.Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) begs to differ. In a blistering statement he released today responding to the Trump/Putin telephone call, Sen. McCain condemned any efforts by President-elect Trump to find common ground with Putin. Any claim by Putin that he wants to improve relations with the US must be vigorously opposed, writes McCain. He explains: We should place as much faith in such statements as any other made by a former KGB agent who has plunged his country into tyranny, murdered his political opponents, invaded his neighbors, threatened America’s allies, and attempted to undermine America’s elections. Interesting that Republican McCain has taken to using the Hillary Clinton campaign line (the one that lost her the election) that somehow the Russians were manipulating the US electoral process. The claim was never backed up by facts and Hillary's claim that some 17 US intelligence agencies agreed with her was shown to be a dangerous and foolish lie.Why is Putin not to be trusted, according to McCain? Vladimir Putin has rejoined Bashar Assad in his barbaric war against the Syrian people with the resumption of large-scale Russian air and missile strikes in Idlib and Homs. Another brutal assault on the city of Aleppo could soon follow. What McCain doesn't say is that unlike US troops in Syria, the Russians are invited by the Syrian government and operate according to international law. Oh yes, and they are also fighting al-Qaeda and ISIS, which has sought to overthrow Assad for the past five years.Maybe McCain is just really sensitive after meeting with al-Qaeda and ISIS in Syria?As rumors swirl from Washington about neocons sniffing out top jobs in the incoming administration, it would serve president-elect Trump well to reflect on he true nature of the neocon beast... Copyright © 2016 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.

1real

Republican tax bill would add $1.7 trillion to deficit: CBO

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Republican tax bill being debated in the U.S. House of Representatives would add $1.7 trillion to the federal budget deficit over 10 years, when recent changes put forth by the head of its tax-writing panel and estimated debt service costs are included, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said. “By CBO’s estimate, additional debt service would boost the 10-year increase in deficits to $1.7 trillion,” the office said in a letter on Wednesday to Representative Richard Neal, the top Democrat on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee.

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YIKES! WATCH CONSERVATIVE HOST EMBARRASS Trump-Hater On FOX “Outnumbered” Show

You gotta hand it to her Whether you love or hate Trump Fox News Andrea Tantaros is right on the money with her assessment of the National Review s unabated hate for Trump National Review s Rich Lowry gleefully bashed Trump on Outnumbered for coming in second in Iowa. Tantaros let him have it.Rich Lowry: He went to Iowa and HE LOST! And he was beaten fair and square by Ted Cruz. And if this thing would have gone one more day Rubio probably would have clipped him. It s because he skipped the FOX debate, he insulted one of the anchors Andrea Tantaros: This is what I don t understand. The party has shifted into a nationalist mode and the voters are angry and they ve been discounted and insulted by your publication. It s really, really rude Tell me this logic. This is the logic I m hearing from you. Third place is a win. Second place is a loss and first place is irrelevant?Via: Gateway Pundit

1real

Comment on A Colorado Ballot Measure Could Make it Nearly Impossible to Ban Fracking by lyle

by Yves Smith By John Light, a reporter and digital producer for the Moyers team. His work has appeared at The Atlantic, Grist, Mother Jones, Salon, Slate, Vox and Al Jazeera, and has been broadcast on Public Radio International. Follow him on Twitter at @LightTweeting. Moyers & Company The Colorado oil and gas industry is poised to strike a devastating blow against anti-fracking activists Tuesday. Enactment of Amendment 71 , a statewide ballot initiative campaign that’s backed by the industry, will make it, in the words of the Denver Post’ s editorial board, “ nearly impossible ” for Colorado voters to amend their state constitution to allow for local fracking bans — or, for that matter, anything else. It’s a story worth telling in some detail, because it vividly illustrates the many obstacles well-connected and well-funded special interests can put in the way of citizens trying to oppose them. The latest battle in a multi-year campaign by a network of pro-fossil fuel groups to defend the fracking industry against local opponents, Amendment 71 would require 2 percent of registered voters in each of Colorado’s 35 state Senate districts to sign petitions for any future initiative before it could be put on the ballot. Right now, anyone who wishes to amend the state constitution must collect signatures from 5 percent of the number of voters who voted for secretary of state in the last election. That threshold is still not always easy for grass-roots groups to meet: Two green priorities — an amendment allowing for local bans on fracking and an amendment requiring fracking operations to be at least a half mile from homes or schools — failed to make the cut for this year’s ballot, according to the secretary of state. Disappointed environmentalists attribute that to a lack of time and resources, but also to a very well-financed campaign by the oil and gas industry. A report released by the watchdog group Public Citizen estimated that fossil fuel interests outspent anti-fracking activists by a factor of 24-to-1. Nonetheless, greens feel ballot measures are among the best options in their political toolbox in a state where well-heeled oil and gas interests have managed to convince both Democratic and Republican politicians that what’s good for their industry is good for the state’s economy. “The political system in Colorado is really aligned with the oil and gas industry,” said Suzanne Spiegel, an organizer with Frack Free Colorado. She described the state’s Democratic governor, John Hickenlooper, as “incredibly supportive” of fossil fuel interests. A former oil and gas geologist, Hickenlooper touts the industry as crucial to the state economy. He once claimed to have joined Halliburton executives in drinking one of the company’s fracking fluids to demonstrate its safety. The governor’s office did not respond to a request for comment on this article. For groups like Spiegel’s, ballot initiatives provide an alternative to a political system they see as in the pocket of the fracking industry. “One of the great things about Colorado is that we currently have access to this channel of direct democracy,” Spiegel said. But, she added, a victory for Amendment 71 “would all but eliminate it.” Both liberal and conservative groups that rely on grass-roots organizing have united to oppose the measure. Oil and gas interests, meanwhile, have thrown in millions of dollars from their sophisticated political operations to make sure the amendment passes on Tuesday. Fossil Fuels’ Grip on Colorado The origins of the current political fight date back 2012, when the top two Colorado oil and gas companies, Anadarko and Noble Energy, geared up to challenge local opposition to fracking. Four Colorado towns were moving to ban fracking or place a moratorium on it. Longmont, Colorado had already succeeded in becoming the first town to do so earlier that year. The fracking boom had hit the state several years before, and some Coloradans were alarmed by the speed at which wells seemed to be multiplying. According to the federal Energy Information Administration , natural gas production doubled in the state between 2001 and 2015, and oil production doubled between 2012 and 2014. With that came a flood of political donations from the oil and gas industry to state and local officials. By 2014, when environmentalists began collecting signatures for two anti-fracking amendments (neither of which ultimately made it onto the ballot), the industry was fully mobilized. In addition to offering two pro-fracking ballot measures of their own, oil and gas interests set up a series of benignly named advocacy groups. Among these were Protecting Colorado’s Environment, Economy, and Energy Independence — often referred to as simply “Protect Colorado” — and Coloradans for Responsible Energy Development (CRED). According to IRS filings (posted online here and here by Greenpeace), these two spent $27 million to promote the industry that year. A political strategist working with the groups, Mark Truax, attended a September 2015 meeting of the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC), where industry executives, lobbyists and regulators from around the US gather to discuss strategy. Truax outlined the political groups’ efforts on behalf of the pro-fracking measures, including a sophisticated voter outreach organization, according to a transcript of the meeting published in Boulder Weekly and made from a recording obtained by Greenpeace researcher Jesse Coleman. On the recording, Truax touted the way the pro-oil and gas groups had targeted 3.9 million voters by demographic to win their sympathy toward fracking. He explained how the groups had built coalitions among businesses in the state and how the industry focused on electing pro-oil and gas city council members. Industry representatives also worked closely with the state regulator, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission . The group’s director, Matt Lepore , was present at the IOGCC meeting where Truax discussed strategy, and emails obtained by Greenpeace’s Coleman through a Freedom of Information Act request show that Lepore and other regulatory officials met with CRED as the group was developing one of its outreach campaigns. “As a public agency, we make ourselves available to any interested party that wants to learn more — or ask about specific issues — related to the COGCC’s work,” said Todd Hartman, a spokesperson for the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, in a statement to BillMoyers.com. “As you might expect, we’d push back very hard” on the idea that the agency coordinates on communications efforts with the industry, he said, adding that COGCC meets monthly with a coalition of environmental groups. Academic Dispute To succeed, the oil and gas industry had to maintain the status quo. And in 2014, they did: No new towns passed fracking bans, and, as part of a compromise with Hickenlooper, environmentalists agreed to end their campaign to put anti-fracking ballot measures on the statewide ballot. As part of the compromise, however, Hickenlooper convened a task force to study ways in which Coloradans could have more input on fracking in their communities. Initially, fracking opponents were hopeful. “The governor’s announcement of the Oil and Gas Task Force is the first step forward in solving the problem of fracking occurring anywhere and everywhere,” said Rep. Jared Polis , a Democrat whose congressional district includes Boulder. But oil and gas interests already had been at work, commissioning researchers at the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado Boulder to work on a series of studies that supported industry talking points. One study, underwritten by an industry-funded group called the Common Sense Policy Roundtable , along with two other groups not affiliated with the industry, declared that a moratorium on fracking would hurt the state’s economy. Another, commissioned and funded by the American Petroleum Institute , demonstrated that fracking had a positive economic impact on Colorado communities. The reports got coverage in The Denver Post and The Colorado Springs Gazette , neither of which disclosed that the Common Sense Policy Roundtable was an industry group. When the relationship between the Leeds School researchers and the industry groups came to light, Bronson Hilliard, a spokesperson for the school at the time, told High Country News that the researchers didn’t know about the group’s funding. “CU-Boulder policy researchers are under no obligation to understand industry organizations’ financial ties or to report them,” he wrote in a statement . But emails between researchers and industry employees, obtained by Greenpeace and Boulder Weekly , appear to show that the industry weighed in as the study was being written, requesting revisions. “I hope this new version is in line with what you envisioned… We look forward to further feedback and comments,” one CU-Boulder researcher said in an email sharing his findings with an API adviser. The emails also suggest a hope that the research would play a role in influencing the governor’s task force. The task force’s legislative recommendations ultimately did little for activists who were seeking greater control of fracking in their own communities. The End of Local Control Though the ballot measures that anti-fracking activists championed in 2014 and the governor’s subsequent task force ultimately failed, towns were having some success banning fracking. By 2015, five Colorado communities as well as Boulder County had voted to implement local bans or moratoria on drilling. These sorts of bans represent a rare area of agreement between Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton: Both have spoken in favor of “local control” — the idea that communities should be able to decide whether or not to approve fracking. “I’m in favor of fracking, but I think that voters should have a big say in it,” Trump told Denver television station KUSA . “I mean, there’s some areas, maybe, they don’t want to have fracking. And I think if the voters are voting for it, that’s up to them.” Clinton has made similar statements, and that panicked oil and gas lobbyists , because the idea of local control has been so potent. In addition to the Colorado communities, New York and Maryland have both banned fracking, as have five counties in California. But the Colorado communities’ bans were overturned this May when the state’s Supreme Court ruled that Colorado law does not allow for “local control.” So this year, anti-fracking activists wanted to put a new cause on the ballot: A “local control” amendment to the state constitution that would allow towns to ban fracking. National groups such as 350.org, Food and Water Watch and Greenpeace lined up behind local groups’ efforts to put the measure on the ballot, along with one that would have required fracking operations to be roughly half a mile from homes. Ultimately, however, Secretary of State Wayne Williams , a Republican, ruled that activists did not gather enough signatures to put these measures on the ballot. Activists handed in about 107,000 signatures — more than the 98,492 required. But Williams did not believe there were enough legitimate signatures to clear the bar. Advocates for the amendments decided they didn’t have the resources to challenge that decision. The industry had prepared for a long and hard fight, but by September, it was all over. So Noble Energy and Anadarko decided instead to pour their money into another initiative — one that would likely make it so they wouldn’t be fighting new activist ballot initiatives every year going forward. “Raise the Bar” Amendment 71 first surfaced as a campaign by business leaders and politicians called “Raise the Bar.” But the idea had its genesis at least a year ago. Greenpeace’s tapes of the September 2015 IOGCC meeting reveal a discussion about an initiative to change “the actual ballot process itself.” Mark Truax, the political strategist working with the oil- and gas-backed industry groups CRED and Protect Colorado, told the meeting participants, “We are in the process of evaluating that right now.” Coloradans have long complained their ballot is cluttered with proposed amendments and referenda that the average citizen cannot be expected to know anything about. The number of measures on the Colorado ballot is often quite large, creating a genuine frustration among voters. “This is too much,” Seth Masket, a University of Denver political science professor and commentator, wrote in Pacific Standard last month , describing his four-page ballot that included 15 state and local initiatives. “There are some legitimately interesting ones, including an increase in the minimum wage, the creation of a new public health care system, and switching from a closed caucus to an open primary in presidential nominations. But is the ballot really the right place to hammer these things out? Do I and other Colorado voters have the necessary expertise to decide whether a substantial restructure of our public-health system will be in the state’s best interests?” To bolster its argument for Amendment 71, Protect Colorado, one of the industry groups, has noted that most signatures on the recent anti-fracking ballot initiatives did not come from the regions where fracking is most intense, and argued that more communities should be involved in deciding what goes on the ballot. But the big money behind the initiative is raising alarms beyond the environmental community. The Denver Post editorial board — a body that often writes in support of the oil and gas industry — recently published an editorial opposing Amendment 71 for that very reason. “The campaign and the cause are the antithesis of grass roots,” The Post wrote. “The real muscle behind Raise the Bar is coming from the oil and gas industry.” “They have a really good shot of winning this thing, honestly,” said Frack Free Colorado’s Spiegel. “Their marketing is great around it. ‘Don’t make it so easy to change the constitution’ — people will get behind that if they don’t know where it’s coming from or why.” Activists are already planning to run another ballot measure campaign to try and legalize fracking bans in 2018. “But if 71 gets adopted,” said Spiegel, “our job is going to be really hard.” 0 0 0 0 0 0

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John Oliver CRUSHES Republican Lies About Supreme Court History (VIDEO)

When a comedian knows more about history than a lawmaker, that s just sad.But John Oliver demonstrated far more knowledge of Supreme Court history on Sunday than Republicans have over the last week since Justice Antonin Scalia passed away.One week after mercilessly slamming Senate Republicans for not doing their damn jobs, Oliver took on Ted Cruz s claim that we have 80 years of precedent of not confirming Supreme Court Justices in an election year, by pointing out that current Justice Anthony Kennedy was confirmed in 1988.However, Oliver noticed that Republicans are constantly amending their claim.GOP Senator Orrin Hatch, for instance, went on national television to claim that it s been that long since someone has been nominated in a president s last year, prompting Oliver to bring out the fact that Abe Fortas and Homer Thornberry were both nominated in 1968 by outgoing President Lyndon Johnson, which is mathematically, unhelpfully, less than 80 years ago. Oliver noted that both nominees failed to be confirmed and surmised that that s what Ted Cruz must have been thinking of when he tweaked his previous claim by saying that for 80 years the Senate has not confirmed a nominee nominated in an election year.And once again, Ted Cruz was proved wrong. That s so close to being true, Oliver said before noting that Justice Brennan was confirmed in 1956 and Justice Murphy was confirmed in 1940.Clearly, these claims are just a excuse for Republicans to avoid doing their jobs as the Constitution requires, which brings us to the most hilarious part of the segment.Oliver played an ad from the conservative Judicial Crisis Network that used stock footage of ethnically diverse Americans to make the case that the American people should have a voice in the nomination process by letting whoever is elected as the next president pick the nominee.That didn t sit well with Oliver, who made it clear that the American people elected President Obama to make these decisions three years ago and he still has nearly a full year in office left. We should let President Obama do his job, Oliver said.And then he totally lampooned the Judicial Crisis Network with an ad of his own using the same kind of stock footage to make the case.Here s the video via YouTube:Once again, John Oliver puts Republicans in their place by demolishing their excuses for refusing to hold confirmation hearings for any nominee President Obama puts forward to fill the vacant seat on the Supreme Court.Featured image via screenshot

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Woman Thrown in Front of Train at Times Square Subway Station Is Killed - The New York Times

A Queens woman was killed after being pushed in front of a subway train in Times Square on Monday, the New York Police Department said. The attack disrupted traffic at one of the city’s busiest transit hubs as trains were diverted and emergency workers converged on the scene. Assistant Chief William Aubry, the commander of Manhattan detectives, said witnesses on both the subway platform and the train itself flagged down police officers and pointed out a suspect. Melanie a Queens woman, was taken into custody almost immediately and later charged with murder. The police described her as emotionally disturbed and said that she had made up a story last month about pushing a woman onto the tracks. The victim’s name was not immediately released. The police were combing through video from the platform and the area to better understand what happened, but the preliminary investigation suggested that the attack was unprovoked. The attack occurred at 1:20 p. m. when a woman was pushed in front of a No. 1 train. Swarms of police officers and emergency workers converged on the station, and subway traffic was rerouted as emergency crews worked to remove the body, which was pinned under the third car of the train. The Times Street station is the busiest on the subway system, with 66 million annual riders. It serves 10 subway lines and the shuttle to Grand Central Station. More than 200, 000 people navigate the tunnels there every day. Cases involving people being pushed in front of subway trains are exceedingly rare, but when they occur, they strike at some of the deepest fears held by city dwellers. In 2012, when Han of Queens was struck and killed by a train in Manhattan, The New York Post published a photograph of him on the tracks moments before his death. Less than a month later, when another person was pushed in front of a train in an unprovoked attack, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg sought to reassure jittery riders. “You can say it’s only two out of the three or four million people who ride the subway every day, but two is two too many,” Mr. Bloomberg said then. “I don’t know that there is a way to prevent things. There is always going to be somebody, a deranged person. ” In 1999, two attacks involving mentally ill people pushing unsuspecting victims into the path of trains, one fatally, led to legislation giving families the right to demand outpatient psychiatric treatment for their ill relatives. Known as Kendra’s Law, it permits state judges to order closely monitored outpatient treatment for people with serious mental illnesses who have records of failing to take medication, and who have frequently been hospitalized or jailed or have exhibited violent behavior. The law was named for Kendra Webdale, who was pushed to her death by Andrew Goldstein. He had stopped taking the medication he had been prescribed for schizophrenia.

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BREAKING Official Set to Testify Against Hillary Found Dead

The suspicious circumstances surrounding the death last week of former U.N. President John Ashe had many wondering whether foul play was involved. The New York Posts Page Six reported that after Ashe was found dead Wednesday, the U.N. claimed that he had died from a heart attack. Local police officers in Dobbs Ferry, New York, later disputed that claim, saying instead that he died from a workout accident that crushed his throat. Adding to the mysterious nature of Ashes death was the fact that he had been slated to be in court Monday with his Chinese businessman co-defendant Ng Lap Seng, from whom he reportedly received over $1 billion in donations during his term as president of the U.N. General Assembly. According to an unidentified source who spoke with Page Six, prosecutors had intended to use the latter fact to link Ashe directly to Democrat front-runner Hillary Clinton, with whom he could be seen schmoozing in the picture above. It would have been very embarrassing, the source added. His death was conveniently timed. There was no evidence at the moment to corroborate the sources theory of foul play, but that certainly did not stop conspiracy theorists from theorizing about what really happened. Those theorists inclined to believe the stories about Hillary and Bill Clinton ordering the murders of their opponents wondered whether the former U.N. president was merely their latest victim However, Ashes own lawyer, Jeremy Schneider, strongly disagreed with these theories. TRENDING STORIES Trump Ditches Media, Walks Into Restaurant Tells Diners Hes Lowering Their Taxes, Gets Explosive Applause SHOCK: Insider Reveals Bill Blames Hillary for Loss Media Dumbfounded Insider Reveals Hillary Got So Violent After Losing Extreme Measures Had to Be Taken There is not one iota of evidence that it was homicide, he reportedly said. This is nothing at all like Vince Foster. The late Vince Foster was a deputy White House counsel who died by gunshot in 1993 after he allegedly committed suicide. Conspiracy theorists have maintained for years that his death was in fact a murder one spearheaded by Hillary Rodham Clinton. No definitive evidence was ever procured to prove this theory, but that didnt stop them then, and it likely wont stop them now. H/T RedFlag News Please share this story on Facebook and Twitter and let us know what you think about this officials death and whether or not you believe any of the conspiracy theories surrounding it! Do you believe any of these conspiracy theories? Scroll down to comment below!

1real

UK certain Iran nuclear deal to be preserved, U.S. says remains committed

LONDON (Reuters) - There is absolutely no doubt that a deal between Western powers and Iran to curb its nuclear program will survive despite the U.S. decision not to recertify the deal, Britain s foreign minister Boris Johnson said on Monday. Johnson was giving a speech on foreign affairs in London. U.S. President Donald Trump broke ranks with other major powers earlier this month by refusing to formally certify that Tehran is complying with the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), even though international inspectors say it is. The U.S. Congress now has 60 days since Trump s action to decide whether to reimpose economic sanctions on Tehran that were lifted under the pact. U.S. Disarmament Ambassador Robert Wood said on Monday Washington would continue to meet its commitments under the JCPOA and will hold Iran strictly accountable for each and every one of its commitments as well. Wood was speaking at a United Nations meeting in New York.

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France defends Iran nuclear deal, which Trump calls deeply flawed

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - France made a new plea on Monday for the United States to preserve the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and suggested its provisions expiring after a decade could be strengthened, as U.S. President Donald Trump again criticized the agreement as “deeply flawed.” The pact between Tehran and six world powers, which calls for Iran to curb its nuclear program in return for relief from economic sanctions, is under threat as Trump must decide by Oct. 15 whether to certify Iran is keeping its end of the bargain. If Trump, who as recently as Thursday accused Iran of violating “the spirit” of the deal, chooses not to certify, the pact could unravel, possibly triggering a regional arms race. The Republican president, who has called the agreement struck under his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, “the worst deal ever negotiated,” made no secret of his views during a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron. “The president believes that the JCPOA is deeply flawed, and he did share his views with President Macron about how he believes the deal is flawed,” Brian Hook, director of policy planning at the U.S. State Department, told reporters. The pact is formally called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. “The president was very candid with him about what he thinks are the shortcomings. ... He told him that it is under review and that they are taking a hard look at the Oct. 15th decision and more broadly how to fix the Iran deal,” Hook said. Hook said the two also discussed an integrated strategy against Iran that would take into account what he described as Iran’s support for terrorism, its ballistic missile program, its destabilization in the Middle East and other aggressions. Asked if he planned to stick with the pact, Trump earlier told reporters as he began a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday: “You’ll be seeing very soon.”Israeli officials have said changes Israel wants in the JCPOA include lengthening the 10-year freeze on Iran’s nuclear development program or even making that suspension permanent and destroying centrifuges rather than just halting their operation. The deal was negotiated with Iran by the United States, Russia, China, Britain, Germany and France. The six will meet with Iran at the ministerial level on Wednesday. The prospect of Washington reneging on the agreement has worried some of the U.S. allies that helped negotiate it, especially as the world grapples with another nuclear crisis, North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile development. “It is essential to maintain it to avoid proliferation. In this period when we see the risks with North Korea, we must maintain this line,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told reporters. “France will try to convince President Trump of the pertinence of this choice (keeping the accord), even if work can be done to complement the accord after 2025,” he said. A senior French official said Trump had not given Macron an indication on whether he had made up his mind during their Monday bilateral. However, the official said Macron had put on the table the prospect of new nuclear negotiations after 2025 during his bilateral with Iranian President Hasan Rouhani and warned him that Tehran should stop provoking the United States with its regional activities. “We feel the post 2025 subject is a red line, but our president put it on the table because it’s a concern and a legitimate request that we must make,” the official said. “2025 will arrive quickly and we have to be ready before Jan 1. 2025, so he asked that we think together how to work on this question.” If Trump does not certify that Iran is complying with the agreement, the U.S. Congress will have 60 days to decide whether to reimpose sanctions waived under the deal. Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned on Sunday that Tehran would react strongly to any “wrong move” by Washington on the nuclear deal. Paris took one of the hardest lines against Tehran in the negotiations, but has been quick to restore trade ties and Macron has said repeatedly there is no alternative to the deal. French officials say Iran is respecting the JCPOA and that, were the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to say otherwise, a mechanism exists to reimpose sanctions. The IAEA is the body ensuring the accord is carried out, but the United States and Iran quarreled over how Tehran’s nuclear activities should be policed at an IAEA meeting on Monday after a U.S. call last month for wider inspections. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson argued on Friday that Washington must consider the full threat it says Iran poses to the Middle East when crafting its new policy toward Tehran. A senior French diplomat underlined that the nuclear deal was achieved in large part because it was not linked to all the other grievances the United States may have had with Iran. With Europeans not on the same page as the Trump administration, Iranian officials say they have an opportunity to divide the P5+1 group that negotiated the deal with Iran. A senior Iranian diplomat and a former nuclear negotiator said he believed the Europeans had no intention of following Trump’s overtly aggressive Iran policy. “They are wise. Look at the region. Crisis everywhere. From Iraq to Lebanon. Iran is a reliable regional partner for Europe, not only a trade partner but a political one as well,” the diplomat said. “European powers have been committed to the deal. The IAEA has repeatedly confirmed Iran’s commitment to the deal. Trump’s insistence on his hostile policy towards Iran will further deepen the gap among the P5+1 countries,” the diplomat said.

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Combative Trump says he raised $5.6 million for vets, bashes media

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Tuesday detailed $5.6 million in contributions he raised for military veterans, and staged a fiery news conference where he attacked reporters for questioning him for months about the money. Appearing at Trump Tower in Manhattan, the billionaire accused the media of failing to give him credit for raising the funds at an event in January in Iowa. His tirade, in which he called one reporter “a sleaze” and sarcastically described another as a “real beauty,” overshadowed what otherwise should have been an upbeat event for the presumptive Republican nominee. “The press should be ashamed of themselves,” he told reporters gathered before him. “You make me look very bad. I’ve never received such bad publicity for doing a good job.” While Trump has long had an adversarial relationship with the media, questions about the donations to veterans touched a raw nerve with him as he tries to build a conservative base ahead of the Nov. 8 general election. Reporters have been persistently asking whether Trump in fact raised all the money he said he had in January and why it took so long to hand donations over to veterans groups. A number of veterans groups listed by Trump on Tuesday as recipients confirmed they had received the donation as listed, ranging from $25,000 to, in one case, $1.1 million, which went to the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation. Some of the donations arrived in February or March, some as recently as last week around the time a critical article appeared in The Washington Post. The money arrived in the form of a check from the Donald J. Trump Foundation. “We received a $75,000 gift early last week from the Trump Foundation, it was not restricted or earmarked in any way,” said Katherine Fritz, director of development at America’s Vetdogs. Trump’s criticism of the media dashed the hopes of some Republican leaders who want him to tone down his rhetoric and become more magnanimous now that he has sealed the Republican presidential nomination. The Washington Post said Trump only handed over a personal donation of $1 million last week - four months after announcing it - once the newspaper started asking about the money. Trump said the news coverage of his veterans group donations had been close to libelous. Asked whether he would maintain an adversarial stance with reporters if elected president, Trump said: “Yeah, it’s going to be like this.” A reporter told Trump he seemed resistant to the kind of scrutiny that comes with the office of U.S. president. But Ari Fleischer, a former White House press secretary for President George W. Bush, said the news media should stop fretting about how Trump treats them. “My advice to the press: Stop interviewing yourselves about Trump’s attack on the press. Don’t worry about it. Just do your jobs and be fair,” he said. The contretemps took place on the same day documents were disclosed from a lawsuit involving Trump University, a now-defunct education program that ran a real estate training program. Trump has attacked the presiding judge as hostile to him. The university documents showed Trump University created a special class to teach students how to cash in on U.S. mortgage foreclosures when the United States was struggling with an entrenched housing crisis in 2009. Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton sought to take advantage of Trump’s discomfort over the media scrutiny he has faced. She told CNN that Trump’s tendency to attack his critics “is a recipe for gridlock in Washington.” Clinton defended her own policy toward dealing with the news media, saying she has conducted 300 interviews this year alone. Unlike Trump, she rarely holds news conferences. Her last one was last December. Clinton leads Trump by 11 percentage points in the latest Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll. According to the May 27-31 survey of likely voters, 46 percent support the former U.S. secretary of state while 35 percent back Trump. California Governor Jerry Brown on Tuesday endorsed Clinton for the Democratic nomination, saying it was the only way to “stop the dangerous candidacy of Donald Trump.” At his news conference, Trump also bristled at the possibility that Republicans opposed to him might run a third-party candidate as an alternative to Trump or the expected Democratic nominee Clinton. He said a leader of that effort, Bill Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard magazine, “looks like such a fool.” “Let me tell you these people are losers,” said Trump, adding that a third-party candidacy would guarantee Clinton wins the White House and deny Republicans the chance to put conservatives on the Supreme Court. “What you’re going to do is lose the election for the Republicans and therefore you lose the Supreme Court,” he said. Trump read out a list of veterans’ organizations that had received money from the January event, which he attended instead of participating in a Fox News-sponsored candidates’ debate. He said the money was benefiting 41 groups and that the total cash raised could climb as more comes in. He turned the microphone over briefly to Al Baldasaro, a Trump supporter and a veteran from New Hampshire who also skewered the news media, saying reporters should “get your head out of your butt, focus on the real issues.”

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Review: ‘No Knives in the Kitchens of This City’ Describes a Syrian Hell - The New York Times

Aleppo has essentially fallen. The images have been unignorable, calamitous: of residents wandering numbly through burning city streets of parents sobbing over dead children of the strong wheeling away the weak. On Tuesday, a United Nations official described the massacre of fleeing civilians as “a complete meltdown of humanity. ” Residents have been tweeting out their goodbyes. Tens of thousands have already been displaced or perished. A metropolis of wealth, power and culture is now in ruins. Khaled Khalifa writes about his native city with sensuality and an almost feral intensity in his new novel, “No Knives in the Kitchens of This City. ” The book focuses on just one family, and it stops several years short of the Syrian civil war. But it offers a glimpse into how terrified and empty of hope the people of a city must be to rise up in revolt. The future offers them nothing. It is a castle of closed doors. “A festival of veritable insanity and strange odors,” Mr. Khalifa writes, “Aleppo became a city given over to ceaseless fear, a city of retribution, whimpering under the appetites of the mukhabarat” — the secret police — “and the corrupt officials who were proficient only in loyalty. ” Convention requires that I recount something of the plot of “No Knives in the Kitchens of This City,” first published in Cairo in 2013. But no synopsis can give a sense of what reading this book is like. Mr. Khalifa’s story is episodic rather than linear it is more about an atmosphere, both emotional and physical, than any defining event. The author, whom this newspaper has called “one of the rising stars of Arab fiction,” writes in lush, pungent prose, some of it overripe, like a fermented banana. But some of it is also beautiful. Here he is, describing Sawsan, the siren of the family, furious at a man for overlooking her charms: “She looked at him with the insolence she reserved for those times when she wanted to scrape the marrow from the bones of someone she intended to punish. ” How many women have shot someone just such a desiccating glare? Or dreamed of it, anyway. In broad strokes: “No Knives in the Kitchens of This City,” translated by Leri Price, is about a cultivated family under two successive autocrats who despise cultivation. What these autocrats — first, Hafez and then his son Bashar — value is conformity, docility and ultimately treachery there are informers informing on informers informing on informers. “My mother told me that spies lived in the trees,” the unnamed narrator explains. To survive such a government with your sanity and dignity intact requires living a “parallel life,” as the narrator often says. You must split off from the rhythms and doings of everyday Syria, in the hope that some small, lonesome part of your moral machinery remains uncorrupted. The narrator of “No Knives in the Kitchens of This City” was born just a few days before Syria’s 1963 coup. He considers this timing a bad omen, a mark upon his destiny, and his solution is to keep his head down and his expectations low. His brother, Rashid, is a gifted violinist and lost soul. His sister, Sawsan, is a creature of wild excess — angry, sexual, mercurial. The narrator has another sister, too, Suad, but a disability takes her life prematurely. It’s the narrator’s mother, though, who embodies the real terror, melancholy and desperation of Aleppo. Once a respected schoolteacher (she gushed to her students about Vivaldi, entertained her friends with teacups) she spends her later years in an embittered state of disassociation. “My mother was like one of those women who never stopped chattering,” the narrator says, “even while yawning. ” Every character gets his or her moment in this book — some in the years before the 1963 coup, some in the near present, some in the decades in between. The central question for each is simple: How do you wrench meaning from such a dismal existence? Some capitulate to the state’s demands. Others defy them and pay the price. Sawsan’s reactions are perhaps the most extreme, running the gamut of possibilities: First she joins the Baath Party and revels in her power then she rejects it and dabbles in religious radicalism. (Her conversion involves a shady operation to restore her virginity.) But nothing, ultimately, can assuage the despair of this family or nation, especially when Bashar takes his father’s place. “He thought he would spend his whole life being desperate and afraid,” the narrator writes of his brother, Rashid. “He told me he wouldn’t wait until the grandson of the late President was ruling over us. ” Shame floods these characters’ veins. Shame about their lust. Shame about their children. And shame, above all, about their failures to fight tyranny. How to justify participating in Baath Party parades, and throatily chanting party songs, and heartily praising party propaganda? Nizar, the narrator’s uncle (also a musician) leads the life with the most integrity. He is defiantly, gay in a place where it is criminal to be so. Mr. Khalifa is interested in erotic desire — and its repression. He lingers over it, conjuring some of the most graphic depictions of sex (in hotel rooms, in prisons, in the recesses of the imagination) I’ve read all year. “No Knives in the Kitchens of This City” meanders a great deal. At moments, it can be slow and hard to follow its characters sometimes act in ways that make little sense, even by the erratic standards of human behavior in dictatorships. But the sights, smells and horror of living in Aleppo come pounding to life in this book. The place, to me, is no longer an abstraction, and Mr. Khalifa clearly fears for its fate throughout. “Cities die,” he writes, “just like people. ” Sometimes sooner than you’d imagine. In your own lifetime, even, right before your eyes.

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Britain must be clearer on Brexit divorce bill: Dutch PM

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May should clear up what financial commitments Britain is willing to honor as part of its divorce agreement with the European Union, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said on Thursday. Theresa May has to come up with more clarity on what she means by other commitments in her Florence speech. I phoned her last week, and tried to encourage her to do that and so far she hasn t, Rutte told reporters on arriving at an EU summit. Asked if the clarification was needed on money, Rutte said: Yes, primarily, and about citizens rights and border controls these are still difficult issues, but particularly the question of the exit bill, he said.

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AFGHANISTAN: Forgotten, But Not Gone

US Army paratrooper in Afghanistan s Konar province (Photo: Spc. Lorenzo Ware/US Army. Source: Wikicommons)Miles Elliott 21st Century WireThe war in Afghanistan is the longest war in US history. Now in its 16th year (and third US President), one might expect the war to be winding down; however, with a resurgent Taliban, and ISIS allegedly present in the country as well, President Trump has recently delegated authority over prosecution of the war to the Pentagon. Now, additional US and NATO troops are being deployed to Afghanistan, and Secretary of Defense James Mattis (together with National Security Advisor HR McMaster) is developing a new, more aggressive strategy for the war. In short, there is no end in sight.Although other wars have claimed this title in the past, Afghanistan is referred to by many as the forgotten war. Even though it has been responsible for the deaths of thousands of US troops and many more people from Afghanistan, it sits nowhere near the forefront of public consciousness; it is more a vague blob in the public s peripheral vision. Nine years ago, in July 2008, PBS aired a video report from their correspondent embedded with US troops in Afghanistan. Even then, at a time before George W Bush had vacated the Oval Office, the title of the video was Afghanistan: The Forgotten War . Then, eight years later at the height of 2016 presidential race, the LA Times published an editorial called Afghanistan: The campaign s forgotten war , in which the author points out that neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump even bothered to mention Afghanistan in their convention speeches.Trump was critical of US military interventionism during his campaign however, and even before his bid for the presidency began, he was in the habit of taking to Twitter to lambast the Obama administration for perpetuating the war in Afghanistan.Let s get out of Afghanistan. Our troops are being killed by the Afghanis we train and we waste billions there. Nonsense! Rebuild the USA. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2013But that did not stop Obama who promised to end the war by 2014 from leaving the White House in January 2017 with 8,400 US troops still stationed in Afghanistan. It is also not stopping Trump himself from reversing course and presiding over the next escalation of US involvement in the country.With the Taliban now in control of more territory than it has been since the US first went into Afghanistan in 2001, and the supposed appearance of ISIS in the country, one has to wonder what the last 16 years have really been about.Surge 4.0For the past few weeks, the American mainstream press has been reporting on Pentagon plans to send additional troops to Afghanistan. Although the number 4,000 has been widely circulated, no official announcements regarding the number or strategy have yet been made. The new strategy is set to be publicly announced in mid-July, and it looks as though more US troops will be sent to Afghanistan to add to the 8,500 American troops already in country. Similarly, fifteen of the twenty-nine NATO member nations so far have also agreed to send more troops to Afghanistan to add to the current NATO presence of 5,000 troops. (It should be noted that there is not currently a US or NATO combat mission in Afghanistan; instead, foreign troops are there on a mission to train Afghan forces.)There is serious doubt among informed observers as to whether an additional few thousand troops will make any difference. After the number 4,000 had been suggested, General Jack Keane, former vice chief-of-staff of the US Army, suggested that between 10,000 and 20,000 additional troops were needed to make a difference. Similarly, in the past few days, former CIA director and defense secretary Leon Panetta also weighed in, echoing Keane s opinion that 4,000 troops would not change the momentum.As Danny Sjursen (the author of the article below) points out, the upcoming surge in troop levels would be the fourth such move made by the US, following three similar increases by Bush and Obama in the years 2008-2010. It is beginning to look like escalating (or, in the case of Bush, starting) war in Afghanistan is something of a rite of passage for new presidents, as all three commanders-in-chief who have presided over the war have done so within the first year of their first terms. The question is, what is the US government actually trying to achieve, and is winning even possible?Remember how the mainstream media treated the surge orchestrated by General David Petraeus in Iraq in 2007. The idea of the surge was received with fawning adoration throughout the media, and even by President Bush, who played his part in helping to advertise and hype up the strategy. And afterwards Petraeus had no problem taking all the credit for his success .Except it wasn t a success. Its goals of ending sectarian violence and reconciling Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds were noble, but were not achieved with any meaningful staying power; the destabilization originally introduced by US intervention ultimately prevailed, and ISIS was the result. The point is that in Iraq, the surge was a triumph of marketing, a rebrand, a new sexy cover for a grisly reality. According to the Boston Globe: For Americans, the myth of the victorious surge is so seductive because it perpetuates an illusion of control. It frames the Iraq War as something other than a geostrategic blunder and remembers our effort as something more than a stalemate. What s more, it reinforces the notion that it s possible to influence events around the world, if only military force is deployed properly. It s a myth that makes victory in the current Iraq mission appear achievable. Now replace the word Iraq with Afghanistan .One sad and daunting possibility is that Afghanistan has become a sort of operations incubator used by the West, that one of the purposes served by a perpetual US and NATO presence there is to provide real-life training and experience to their troops, and to test weapons and equipment. Over time, a very significant number of foreign troops can be cycled in from various countries, and those countries then benefit from being able to test out new weapons, bombs, combat methods, training, and operational procedures and tactics. This prospect is even mentioned in Danny Sjursen s article: As one high-ranking Afghan official recently lamented, thinking undoubtedly of the first use in his land of the largest non-nuclear bomb on the planet, Is the plan just to use our country as a testing ground for bombs?' If that is even partly the case, the West requires a theater of war containing a long, infinitely extendable conflict in order to fulfil these requirements for the wider military-industrial complex. In Afghanistan, that s exactly what they have.A Flawed StrategyIn a recent article by independent journalist Gareth Porter, he points out that the US strategy in Afghanistan has a fatal flaw, which goes a long way toward explaining why the war is not being won : The real reason for the fundamental weakness of the US-NATO war is the fact that the United States has empowered a rogues gallery of Afghan warlords whose militias have imposed a regime of chaos, violence and oppression on the Afghan population stealing, killing and raping with utter impunity. In Porter s view, American objectives and methods in ousting the Taliban may have been short-sighted, as the Taliban came to power partly as a response to the sexual violence and predatory behaviour of Afghan warlords . The organization [Taliban] appeared in 1994 in response to the desperate pleas of the population in the south especially in a Kandahar province divided up by four warlords to stop the wholesale abduction and rape of women and pre-teen boys, as well as the uncontrolled extortion of tolls by warlord troops. The Taliban portrayed themselves as standing for order and elementary justice against chaos and sexual violence, and they immediately won broad popular support to drive the warlords out of power across the south, finally taking over Kabul without a fight. Ever since the invasion in 2001, the US has played favorites with the warlords, pitting various leaders against one another; helping selected ones to become more powerful, allowing some to become regional governors, putting others on the CIA payroll, and eventually turning their private militias into the national police. Over the years several different US commanders have taken the reins of the war in Afghanistan, but this strategy of using the warlord militias persisted, since there was no other adequate source of manpower to provide security, not only for the general population in Afghanistan but also for the US-NATO coalition troops themselves.The occurrence of green-on-blue attacks by Afghan police or military against US/coalition forces (such as the one last month that killed three American soldiers) may be largely attributable to the strategy of using warlord militias, but it is worth mentioning that the Taliban also actively infiltrates both the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police. Moreover, in Helmand and Kandahar provinces in particular, profits from the drug trade provide temptation to every element in society. As one article stated, the two provinces burdened with the bulk of green-on-blue attacks are Helmand and Kandahar. It is no coincidence that these areas are where the Taliban are strongest, and where the country s highest levels of opium poppy cultivation help fund the insurgency. Although the frequency of green-on-blue attacks has declined (corresponding with the reduced US presence in Afghanistan), the number of different groups and interests represented on the ground make for an exceedingly complex web of relationships in which it is not always easy to see an attack coming.Coupled with the flawed and failing US strategy of alliances is an unwillingness to admit defeat amongst both civilian and military managers of the Afghan war. The combination of these two factors could be a significant contributing factor as to why the conflict shows no signs of ending. In an interview with Gareth Porter, radio host and antiwar activist Scott Horton made the point this way: It is the case that every one of these guys in the war cabinet are heavily invested in some sort of spin that they won or are winning, or that there is some kind of positive light at the end of the tunnel, because each and every one of them is wrapped up in it. [Secretary of Defense] Mattis was in the original war, and was the head of CENTCOM for a time in charge of the war. [National Security Advisor] McMaster was in charge of counter-corruption during the Petraeus-Obama surge in 2009-2012. You have the Secretary of Homeland Security who apparently has quite a bit of sway, Kelly, whose son died in Helmand province in Petraeus surge, and they re not going to want to admit that that was a sunk cost lost, for understandable reasons. Dunford, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well, has been in charge of the Afghan war. So these men have everything to lose by admitting that they lost. Porter agrees that there are other contributing factors to the war being seemingly unending and unwinnable, such as: the careers of the US officers who serve there; the bureaucratic stakes of the Joint Special Operations Command and the CIA in their huge programs and facilities in the country; the political cost of admitting that it was a futile effort from the start. Plus, the Pentagon and the CIA are determined to hold on to Afghan airstrips they use to carry out drone war in Pakistan for as long as possible. A word that frequently gets used with regard to the Afghan conflict is stalemate . After nearly 16 years, the Taliban now exercises control over about 40% of the territory in Afghanistan. They have allies such as the Haqqani network resupplying them from bordering Pakistan considered something of a safe haven for terrorists despite being a US ally. As Danny Sjursen writes: if all goes well (which isn t exactly a surefire thing), that s likely to be the best that Surge 4.0 can produce: a long, painful tie. These criticisms may sound harsh to those hoping that the coming surge will make a difference, but the problems (and questions) regarding America s involvement in Afghanistan are far deeper and broader than those presented above.Fraud, Waste & AbuseOn a financial level, corruption and waste rule the day on both the Afghan and American sides of US involvement and there is an astounding amount of money at stake. While the overall war has cost US taxpayers around a trillion dollars so far, funds appropriated for reconstruction stand at over $117 billion. As usual, it looks like money in the form of government contracts may be a reason why there is little urgency to end the war. As Ryan Crocker, former US Ambassador to Afghanistan, said: The ultimate failure for our efforts wasn t an insurgency. It was more the weight of endemic corruption. John Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), makes quarterly reports to Congress about his oversight of spending on reconstruction in Afghanistan. Some of SIGAR s findings over the years have been breathtaking. Take for example SIGAR s finding that there may be 200,000 ghost soldiers , Afghan soldiers whose salaries are US-taxpayer funded but who seem not even to exist except on paper. Or the gas station that cost an absurd $43 million to build, but that nobody uses and about which the Pentagon now has no knowledge. Or the $28 million needlessly spent on uniforms for the Afghan army, in forest camouflage, even though woodland covers only 2.1% of Afghan territory.As of two years ago, there was $35 billion in reconstruction funds spent that could not be accounted for, with many projects failing to meet requirements or specifications. It would seem the contractors winning the bids to rebuild Afghanistan are doing rather well for themselves; underwritten by the US taxpayer, there appears to be no end to the amount of money in the trough. As Sopko told WhoWhatWhy: We have spent more in Afghanistan than we did on the entire Marshall Plan to rebuild postwar Europe. The American taxpayer has had to foot that $114 billion bill, so they deserve to know not only the cost but also what it has gotten them. Bear in mind that SIGAR only covers reconstruction costs, not appropriations for bombs, arms, planes or other military equipment, vehicles or weaponry. A US Marine patrols through a poppy field in Helmand province, Afghanistan (Photo: Cpl. John M. McCall, USMC. Source: Wikicommons)The Opium QuestionSince the US military first invaded Afghanistan in 2001, production of opium in the country has increased dramatically. Although it is impossible to measure exactly how much opium is being produced, the UN produces yearly reports in which it estimates production levels, as well as how much land area is allocated for purpose of growing opium poppies. The latest UN figures for the year 2015-2016 show a significant increase in both the area used for opium cultivation (from 183,00 to 201,000 hectares, a 10% increase), as well as for potential production of opium (from 3,300 tons to 4,800 tons, a 43% increase).In addition, despite $8.5 billion spent on eradication, the area destroyed by eradication efforts decreased by 91% from 2015 to 2016 (from 3,760 hectares eradicated down to just 355 hectares eradicated), and yield increased by 30% (from 18.3 kg of opium produced per hectare to 23.8 kg). All this places 2016 into the top three years for opium cultivation since the UN Office on Drugs and Crime began monitoring opium in Afghanistan in 1994.Afghanistan is the world s largest opium producer by a very wide margin, with a widely cited statistic being that opium from Afghanistan is in 90% of the heroin produced worldwide. Opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan to 2016 (Image: UNODC. Source: Afghanistan Opium Survey 2016)War on Drugs?America s War on Drugs is rife with contradictions, but the fact that US troops (and DEA agents) have been stationed in a country responsible for 90% of the world s heroin market for 16 years, with production increasing and eradication declining, is, shall we say, counter-intuitive especially when one considers that at home, media outlets across the country are reporting daily on America s heroin and opioid epidemic .According to the CDC, deaths due to opioid overdose in the United States increased by 16% between 2014 and 2015. Between 2002 and 2013, deaths due to heroin overdose nearly quadrupled. (Opioids are a class of drug that includes opiates natural, opium-derived drugs like morphine as well as synthetic versions like oxycodone or fentanyl; both are lethal and rapidly-growing problems in the United States.) Of course this is to say nothing about the legions of people languishing in US prisons for the nonviolent crime of drug possession.To assume that there is no connection between the country that helps supply 90% of the world s heroin on the one hand, and an explosion in America of heroin-related addiction and death on the other, is foolhardy to say the least.It is also noteworthy that in July 2000, in cooperation with the UN, the Taliban outlawed the growing of opium, which is why production dropped sharply for the year 2001. As summarized in a 2004 academic paper for the International Journal of Drug Policy: Afghanistan was the main source of the world s illicit heroin supply for most of the 1990s. From late 2000 and the year that followed, the Taliban enforced a ban on poppy farming via threats, forced eradication, and public punishment of transgressors. The result was a 99% reduction in the area of opium poppy farming in Taliban-controlled areas It is concluded that the reduction in Afghan poppy cultivation was due to the enforcement action by the Taliban. Globally, the net result of the intervention produced an estimated 35% reduction in poppy cultivation and a 65% reduction in the potential illicit heroin supply from harvests in 2001. Though Afghan poppy growing returned to previous levels after the fall of the Taliban government, this may have been the most effective drug control action of modern times. If one only ever observed US involvement in Afghanistan, it might begin to look as though perhaps the United States is not actually waging a war on drugs. US troops are there, in the poppy fields, production is rising, and live on Fox News, a USMC lieutenant colonel clearly told Geraldo Rivera we provide them [poppy farmers] security, we re providing them resources . However, Afghanistan is not the only instance we have of the US government protecting drug traffickers. Abby Martin explains:In 2012, a Mexican government official from Juarez told Al Jazeera that the CIA and other international security forces don t fight drug traffickers and that instead, the agency tries to manage the drug trade. Back in the fifties, the CIA turned a blind eye to drug trafficking through the Golden Triangle while training Taiwanese troops against Communist China. As William Blum reports in Rogue State: The CIA flew the drugs all over Southeast Asia, to sites where the opium was processed into heroin, and to trans-shipment points on the route to Western customers. These are far from isolated incidents. During the eighties, the CIA financially and logistically backed anti-communist contras in Nicaragua who also happened to be international drug traffickers. Former Representative Ron Paul elaborated on the CIA s notorious corruption when speaking to a group of students about Iran-Contra: [Drug trafficking] is a gold mine for people who want to raise money in the underground government in order to finance projects that they can t get legitimately. It is very clear that the CIA has been very much involved with drug dealings. We saw [Iran-Contra] on television. They were hauling down weapons and drugs back. There are certainly questions that the US government has to answer about its relationship with the drug business. But another aspect of Afghan opium production which deserves further investigation is the extent of Chinese involvement in the modern opium trade coming out of Afghanistan. It has been reported that Afghan poppy farmers have begun growing what they call Chinese seed , a genetically-modified poppy seed that allow farmers to grow poppies year-round and harvest their crops every two months. In March of this year, CNBC reported that Chinese seed was in fact being grown legally in China for pharmaceutical purposes but had somehow crossed the border into Afghanistan.Last month 21WIRE featured the documentary Afghan Overdose, about the Afghan opium trade, in our Sunday Screening series.Afghanistan and EmpireTo understand how globalist empire-builders view Afghanistan, however, we might direct readers attention to a superb video by James Corbett for Global Research s GRTV. In the video, Corbett explains in a very concise fashion the greater historical and geopolitical context out of which the current conflict in Afghanistan arose.. The video provides evidence as to why 9/11 could not have been the real reason for the US invasion of Afghanistan, and what makes the country an extremely important asset in geopolitical and geostrategic terms. Afghanistan s position as the world s preeminent producer of opium alone would make the country very significant on the world stage; according to UN figures from 2010, the market for opiates worldwide is worth $65 billion, although the actual figure today could be considerably higher. Another very important factor making Afghanistan an attractive economic prize is what lies under the ground in the country; in addition to a significant amount of oil and gas, Afghanistan is also home to a vast wealth of minerals such as iron, copper, cobalt, gold and lithium, estimated at over $1 trillion in value. Let s also not forget its appeal as the potential location for energy pipelines.As Corbett explains, however, the real value of Afghanistan is its strategic location. Drawing on the geostrategic treatises of Halford Mackinder and Zbigniew Brzezinski, Corbett places Afghanistan at the very center of the new Great Game, the battle between east and west for the crucial region of Central Asia, and ultimately the globe.Should we really be surprised by any of this? Although the Hollywood/mainstream media/pop-culture view of America is that of a democratic, freedom-loving, law-abiding member of the international community, regular readers of 21WIRE will already be aware that this image is largely a myth. In a recent article for The American Conservative deconstructing the myth of a rules-based international order , Boston University historian Andrew Bacevich points out that: Among the items failing to qualify for mention in the liberal internationalist, rules-based version of past U.S. policy are the following: meddling in foreign elections; coups and assassination plots in Iran, Guatemala, the Congo, Cuba, South Vietnam, Chile, Nicaragua, and elsewhere; indiscriminate aerial bombing campaigns in North Korea and throughout Southeast Asia; a nuclear arms race bringing the world to the brink of Armageddon; support for corrupt, authoritarian regimes in Iran, Turkey, Greece, South Korea, South Vietnam, the Philippines, Brazil, Egypt, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and elsewhere many of them abandoned when deemed inconvenient; the shielding of illegal activities through the use of the Security Council veto; unlawful wars launched under false pretenses; extraordinary rendition, torture, and the indefinite imprisonment of persons without any semblance of due process. The United States has not lived up to what the media tells us it is for some time. The war in Afghanistan is no exception.More on this story from TomDispatch US Special Operations Task Force at Bagram air field, Afghanistan (Photo: Tech. Sgt. Michael A. O Connor/USAF. Source: Wikicommons) Danny Sjursen TomDispatchWe walked in a single file. Not because it was tactically sound. It wasn t at least according to standard infantry doctrine. Patrolling southern Afghanistan in column formation limited maneuverability, made it difficult to mass fire, and exposed us to enfilading machine-gun bursts. Still, in 2011, in the Pashmul District of Kandahar Province, single file was our best bet.The reason was simple enough: improvised bombs not just along roads but seemingly everywhere. Hundreds of them, maybe thousands. Who knew?That s right, the local Taliban a term so nebulous it s basically lost all meaning had managed to drastically alter U.S. Army tactics with crude, homemade explosives stored in plastic jugs. And believe me, this was a huge problem. Cheap, ubiquitous, and easy to bury, those anti-personnel Improvised Explosive Devices, or IEDs, soon littered the roads, footpaths, and farmland surrounding our isolated outpost. To a greater extent than a number of commanders willingly admitted, the enemy had managed to nullify our many technological advantages for a few pennies on the dollar (or maybe, since we re talking about the Pentagon, it was pennies on the millions of dollars).Truth be told, it was never really about our high-tech gear. Instead, American units came to rely on superior training and discipline, as well as initiative and maneuverability, to best their opponents. And yet those deadly IEDs often seemed to even the score, being both difficult to detect and brutally effective. So there we were, after too many bloody lessons, meandering along in carnival-like, Pied Piper-style columns. Bomb-sniffing dogs often led the way, followed by a couple of soldiers carrying mine detectors, followed by a few explosives experts. Only then came the first foot soldiers, rifles at the ready. Anything else was, if not suicide, then at least grotesquely ill-advised.Continue reading this story at TomDispatchREAD MORE AFGHANISTAN NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Afghanistan FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE AND ITS WORK BY SUBSCRIBING AND BECOMING A MEMBER @ 21WIRE.TV

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Kellyanne Conway Gets Caught Tweeting Her Love To A White Supremacist On Twitter

Kellyanne Conway just embarrassed herself again while also demonstrating just how cozy the Trump administration is with white nationalists.It may be Valentine s Day, but as a public employee who represents Trump on a daily basis, Conway should know better.On Tuesday, a white nationalist Twitter account sent a Valentine s Day message to Conway. Your strength & resiliency in face of vile hatred, bigotry, & sexism of the unhinged Left is a daily inspiration! Love you! Well, if Conway had done a little homework, she would have discovered that the Twitter user is a white nationalist whose account proudly boasts that they Hate Anti-American Liberals, Marxists, & Commies with hashtags that say #WhiteIdentity, #Nationalist, and #SteveBannon. As we all know, Steve Bannon is sympathetic to white nationalists and he is a favorite of white nationalist groups. Bannon is also Donald Trump s top adviser who is likely pulling the strings in the White House.Anyway, Conway told the white racist, Love you back. After being called out on Twitter, Conway removed the tweet and claimed that someone else tweeted from her account.Seriously. I don t know who had access to my account, Conway claimed. Let me see who tweeted that. That s terrible. I denounce whoever it is. It will be immediately deleted. Everybody makes mistakes. Let s just get this straight. Kellyanne Conway works for the so-called president. She is one of his top advisers and probably has security clearances. Yet she claims someone she doesn t know managed to gain access to her Twitter account. That s a really pathetic excuse the day after Michael Flynn resigned as National Security Adviser for being a security risk.It s more likely that Conway retweeted the white nationalist and decided to lie about doing so. But either way, Kellyanne Conway looks incompetent.Clearly, Michael Flynn is not the only Trump adviser who should have resigned.Featured Image via screen capture

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AWESOME! Reporter Ruins Trump Protester’s Day With This Shocking News [Video]

These Trump protesters are so out of control with their hate and violence yet it s Trump who s being blamed for hateful rhetoric. The truth is that these protesters don t want free speech unless it s theirs. They have no respect for anyone else and certainly not for authority. Reality hit this anti-Trump gal on the head when mid-interview he shocked her when he told her Trump had made it into the building to speak. The look of shock on her face was priceless:

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PRICELESS! SEN CHUCK SCHUMER’S Childish Stunt To Bash Senate Healthcare Bill Backfires [Video]

This is hysterical! Senator Chuck Schumer can t even get a stunt right! He held a press conference to bash the Senate s healthcare bill and tried to pull a childish stunt. He had someone place a sign with the word mean on it and then took out a sharpie and added the letters E-R . The only problem is that you couldn t see the added letters AT ALL! He had to go back and try to fill it in STILL COULDN T SEE IT! Priceless! .@SenSchumer adds letters "E-R" to poster board next to him. "The Senate version of #TrumpCare is even meaner than the House bill." pic.twitter.com/u7r7l1sKyR CSPAN (@cspan) June 22, 2017 How childish that Schumer is fear mongering by calling the Senate healthcare bill meaner than the House bill. If being fiscally responsible with taxpayer dollars while trying to fix the disaster that is Obamacare is meaner then so be it. Someone needs to be the adult in the room and stop the madness and government waste that was happening during the Obama years. The Democrats just don t understand that the American people GET IT and are sick of the fear mongering from Democrats. We can also do without the class warfare from the Dems! People from all walks of life have figured out what the Democrats are all about. Schumer needs to get a clue!

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Backstory: Behind the terror takedown

When a U.S. special operations team suddenly surrounded the car carrying the Islamic State's second in command, he was given the split-second option of surrendering. Instead, he began firing. Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli, also known as Abu Ala al-Afri and Haji Imam, died in a hail of bullets early Thursday morning on an isolated road in eastern Syria, a location described by U.S. military officials as being "in the middle of nowhere." Defense Secretary Ash Carter told a press conference Friday he was ISIS' finance minister. But the terror leader also was considered the man most likely to take over for ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, if he were captured or killed. Details of the takedown emerged Friday, including descriptions of the elite U.S. assault force arriving in helicopters as drones flew overhead, tracking him. When al-Afri refused to surrender, he and all those with him were killed. If he had been captured, he would have been interrogated and then handed over to Iraqi authorities. The U.S. team had been practicing the mission for weeks. "It was a really good mission," one source familiar with the developments told Fox News. "It was precision and went as planned." "We are systematically eliminating ISIL's cabinet," Carter said at the news conference. “The removal of this ISIL leader will hamper the organization’s ability to conduct operations both inside and outside of Iraq and Syria." Carter described the target as responsible for funding ISIS operations and involved in some external affairs and plots. He said this was the second senior leader successfully targeted this month, in addition to the group’s “minister of war” Omar al-Shishani, or “Omar the Chechen,” killed in a recent U.S. airstrike. A U.S. official told Fox News that the Brussels terror attack earlier this week prompted the raid in Syria. Al-Afri is a former physics professor from Iraq who originally joined Al Qaeda in 2004. After spending time in an Iraqi prison, he was released in 2012 and traveled to Syria to join up with what is now ISIS. On May 14, 2014, the U.S. Department of the Treasury designated him as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” for his role with ISIS. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joe Dunford, also said at the press conference that more U.S. troops might be headed to Iraq soon. "The secretary and I both believe that there will be an increase to the U.S. forces in Iraq in the coming weeks,” Dunford said. “But that decision hasn't been made." He added that despite a number of high profile strikes against the terrorists, “by no means would I say that we're about to break the back of ISIL or that the fight is over." Fox News’ Lucas Tomlinson and Jennifer Griffin contributed to this report.

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THUG VIOLENTLY ROBS 81-YEAR OLD WOMAN…But She Gets Her Revenge! [Video]

Security camera footage captured Mary, an 81-year-old woman, being assaulted by a man at a bank ATM machine in Aurora, Ontario.The man waited for Mary to finish her transaction, then went for her money. Mary fought back with spunk, in an effort to make sure security cameras captured his image. Her attacker has since been arrested.Statement from York Regional Police:THIS GUY, WHO VIOLENTLY ROBBED AN 81-YEAR-OLD LADY IS STILL ON THE LOOSE. We need your help to ID him. If you have any information on who this violent suspect might be, please call our investigators at 1-866-876-5423 x7141. Investigators with the York Regional Police #1 District Criminal Investigations Bureau are releasing surveillance video of a violent robbery of an 81-year-old lady and seeking public assistance to identify the suspect. On Monday, July 31, 2017, shortly before 7:30 p.m., police were called to a bank located at 15252 Yonge Street, which is in the area of Yonge Street and Wellington Street, in the Town of Aurora for a report of a robbery. Investigators have learned that the 81-year-old victim used an automated teller machine to withdraw money. When the transaction was complete, an unknown man approached the victim and tried to grab her money. The victim resisted and the man pushed her to the ground and stole her money. The suspect fled the area on foot. The victim was taken to hospital suffering from non-life-threatening injuries. Investigators are releasing surveillance video of the attack and images of the suspect and are seeking public assistance to identify him. Suspect: Male White 5 7 Brown hair Wearing a white T-shirt, dark-coloured cargo shorts and black sunglasses Anyone with information is asked to contact the #1 District Criminal Investigations Bureau at 1-866-876-5423, ext.7141, Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS, leave an anonymous tip online at www.1800222tips.com, or text your tip to CRIMES (274637) starting with the word YORK.

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I Lived in a 38-Person Co-Op in San Francisco, and so Can You

I Lived in a 38-Person Co-Op in San Francisco, and so Can You The joy and practice of learning to share By Tommy Alexander / thebolditalic.com Community living is blossoming in 21st-century San Francisco. This trend exists at the confluence of diverse historical narratives: the free-love and experimental ethos of the hippie movement, the casual opulence of the city’s Victorian-era homes and the earnest audacity of start-up culture. These are co-ops where programmers and cooks rub shoulders with artists and teachers, where the phrase “love and gratitude” is used as a casual valediction, and where globally minded innovators are working to develop replicable models for urban shared living. I live in a 13-person co-op in a big old house near the apex of Ashbury Street. Up here in the fog between the hills and the sky, we are sharing a fundamental human experience: a sense of belonging and collaborative meaning-making that can be difficult to find in modern urban society. These choices may seem unconventional, but they have enabled us to forge a meaningful, creative and affordable existence amid the hectic, electric bustle of our context. My housemates and I share food, resources and vision. We cook together; we clean together; and we meet regularly to discuss our mutual stake in this community. Some of us work nine-to-five office jobs; some of us work on nights and weekends; and others work primarily from home — so we use Slack, the messaging app, to stay on the same page. We keep records of logistical information on a Google Drive, and we manage our common-pool funds in a shared bank account. We make group decisions using a combination of consensus and do-ocracy . There are jams and sharing circles as well as neighborhood-focused events, potlucks, talks and the occasional party — and we must communicate thoughtfully with each other to make sure that everyone’s needs are met. These choices may seem unconventional, but they have enabled us to forge a meaningful, creative and affordable existence amid the hectic, electric bustle of our context. I’m aware that the concept of communal living carries cultural baggage. When I speak to friends and family who haven’t experienced anything quite like this, they invariably draw comparisons to communes and college dorms. Those are communities, too, but the vast spectrum of human collectivism is far more multifaceted than these few common examples might imply. It is natural to process new phenomena in terms of what we know, but it is also important to understand that each community is a unique collection of individuals. I’ve met a great many bright, passionate and reasonable people who have elected to pool resources with each other, and it looks a little bit different each time. There is no singular “type” of person that benefits most from shared living. Each day, I awoke with a visceral sense of belonging. As for me, I arrived in San Francisco in June of 2015. I had just landed my first full-time writing job out of college. I grew up in hot, flat San Jose in the sprawling, suburban shadow of “the city,” and some yearning part of me had always identified more with the foggy peninsula than the sunny valley. I was coming here alone, and I knew that I wanted to move in with a group of people. I answered a Craigslist ad, filled out an online application and underwent a series of casual phone interviews — and there I was on the doorstep of a 24-person co-op that spanned the lower two floors of a four-story walk-up on the north side of Alamo Square. For the first few weeks, I felt that my social capacity was being worn down to a nub: there were so many new faces; there was so much happening all the time; and I was always a step behind. The people were warm and welcoming, however, and their home became my home. Within the month, the lease was up, and the community disbanded due to a difference in vision between the two cofounders. The members were variously scattered across the city and the East Bay. I joined a wave of 38 people who were moving into a 10-bedroom, four-story Victorian mansion around the block. The founders called it Chateau Ubuntu, for the Bantu word that roughly translates to “I am human because you are human.” On July 1, I found myself sleeping in a bunk bed in a large third-floor master bedroom with five other people, four chandeliers and a fireplace topped by a marble relief of three nude nymphs. I lived in that room for nine months — a gestation — and my experience became a fascinating journey through the building blocks of humanity. I discovered that community is a synecdoche for society, and that any human system is just a web of agreements. I learned what it takes to keep a co-living unit afloat amid the various logistical necessities of city living: the rent, the utilities, the food, the facilities and how to facilitate the needs and wants of 38 unique individuals. I radically challenged my preconceptions about sharing space, time and resources. I fell deeply in love, and I found confidence in my art. Each day, I awoke with a visceral sense of belonging. To the uninitiated, a 38-person community living so densely in a single home often comes across as mad. In the act, however, it felt as though nothing could be more natural. There were deep and frustrating downsides, of course: high membership turnover, too little privacy and some unresolved interpersonal tensions. We were rarely able to wrangle a meaningful consensus, with so many people constantly in and out. Yet the physical closeness, coupled with a culture of radical acceptance, fostered perhaps the most warm and loving community of humans that I have ever experienced. For every serious meeting or disagreement, there was a “cuddle puddle,” a “gratitude circle,” an impromptu jam session or a big shared meal. Eventually, I burned out on the sheer density of Chateau Ubuntu. I needed a smaller and less socially absorptive environment in which to create more intention around my work, my art, my life and my love. I needed space to think. Along with a few friends, my partner and I left Chateau Ubuntu to cofound a new, smaller community: our current home, Chaortica . We remain connected to a colorful coalition of other communities in the greater Haight-Ashbury area and beyond, including Ubuntu and the flagship house of the Embassy Network. We’ve tapped into the Fellowship for Intentional Community , a global directory of shared-living communities that includes communes, eco-villages, co-ops and collectives of all stripes. We don’t have it all figured out, but we are working together and collaborating on our dreams. Indeed, we cannot ever expect this to be perfect. As with any team, relationship or government, an intentional community is a constant practice, not a steady state. Certainly, some of the communities that take root in San Francisco are more ephemeral than others. There are ventures that fold within a year, and there are cooperatives that raise children in their midst. I’ve not encountered a house here that did not experience at least some small occasional turnover, but this does not mean that we are building sand castles. There is such a vast, wild richness to the spectrum of human experience, and each person whom I’ve met has taught me something about myself. When we come together across disparate backgrounds, we inform and expand each other’s humanity. I posit that community living can be just as empowering as living alone but that it is always an exercise in adaptation. It works only with empathy, humility and a mutually assured foundation of healthy, open communication. One might argue that these practices are essential to the future of our species on a crowding , warming planet of 7.4 billion people . Cities are denser and pricier than ever, and we must learn to share — on a personal and civilizational scale — in ways that we have scarcely imagined. I do not mean that we all need to live in co-ops and communes, but I do contend that it is worthwhile for each of us to reconsider how much we can trust one another. I hope that we can all take the principle of collectivism as a nugget in and of itself rather than a subordinate component of gentrification, for collaboration is not a limitation. The solution to density is trust, not fear. Sharing is easier when we parse our wants from our needs. Life is more meaningful together. Tommy Alexander - Writing and loving and building community in San Francisco. Musician, climber, poet. Guides at AFAR. The Bold Italic - The Bold Italic is an online magazine that celebrates the character and free-wheeling spirit of San Francisco and the Bay Area. 0.0 ·

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Trump doubles down in naming a combative true believer as campaign chief

At the lowest point of Donald Trump’s quest for the presidency, the Republican nominee might have brought in a political handyman to sand his edges. Instead, he put his campaign in the hands of a true believer who promises to amplify the GOP nominee’s nationalist message and reinforce his populist impulses. “Steve Bannon is a fighter’s fighter. He is somebody who wants to be the first boots on the beach. In the military, it’s called the tip of the spear,” said David Bossie, a conservative activist. It was Bossie who five years ago introduced Trump to Bannon, the top executive of the new media clarion of the establishment-­loathing right, Breitbart News. Breitbart has since become a champion of Trump’s candidacy — in large part because Stephen K. Bannon himself believes it represents a cause much bigger than a political campaign. Bannon sees Trumpism as part of a global movement that will continue, no matter who is sitting in the Oval Office next January, those close to him say. Last September, when hardly anyone else on this side of the Atlantic was taking the prospect of a British exit from the European Union seriously, Bannon invited influential Republican leaders to a dinner for Nigel Farage, the head of the UK Independence Party, at the Capitol Hill townhouse known as the “Breitbart Embassy.” Bossie and others hailed Bannon’s pick as a sign that Trump, whose campaign has wobbled since the GOP convention, will return to the messages that won him the Republican nomination. “It’s been frustrating that the campaign is not as vibrant and agile as we thought it could be at this stage,” Bossie said. “Steve is all action, action, action.” Democrats saw a darker, more divisive turn in the selection of Bannon to hold the new title of chief executive. Robby Mook, campaign manager for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, told reporters on Wednesday: “We absolutely expect, with this change, for Donald Trump and the campaign as a whole to double down on more conspiracy theories, more hateful rhetoric, more wild accusations.” Mook also called Breitbart News a “divisive, at times racist, anti-Muslim conspiracy news site,” citing a report earlier this year by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a legal advocacy organization. One headline last October dubbed Bannon “the most dangerous political operative in America.” In that Bloomberg News article, Joshua Green reported that Andrew Breitbart, the late founder of the site, had “described Bannon, with sincere admiration, as the Leni Riefenstahl of the Tea Party movement,” a reference to the infamous and glamorous maker of Third Reich propaganda films. Moviemaking has been one of the many chapters of Bannon’s career, which had previously included four years aboard a Navy destroyer, a post-MBA stint with Goldman Sachs, and founding an investment firm specializing in media. In one particularly felicitous deal, Bannon’s fee included an early stake in “Seinfeld,” the residuals of which alone would turn out to be enough to make him wealthy. Along the way, he developed a worldview remarkably in tune with what is now regarded as Trumpism: suspicious of free trade and liberal immigration policies, wary of military adventurism, and contemptuous of the old order. Bannon grew up in a working-class Democratic family in Norfolk, Va. He has attributed his disillusionment with the Democrats to his years in the Navy under Jimmy Carter as commander in chief, and said his experience running businesses in Asia while George W. Bush was president convinced him that establishment Republicans were no better. Bannon met Andrew Breitbart at a Beverly Hills screening of a 2004 Bannon-produced documentary on Ronald Reagan. “We screened the film at a festival in Beverly Hills,” Bannon told Bloomberg’s Green, “and out of the crowd comes this, like, bear who’s squeezing me like my head’s going to blow up and saying how we’ve gotta take back the culture.” At the time, Breitbart was trying to get his own website going, after having been an editor for the conservative aggregator Matt Drudge and a researcher for Arianna Huffington’s left-leaning Huffington Post. Bannon signed on to Breitbart’s new venture. After Breitbart’s death from heart failure in 2012, Bannon vowed to carry on his vision by building a global operation of “real hell fighters.” His operation has a more wonkish side as well, in the form of the nonprofit Government Ac­count­ability Institute, which pro­duced the best-selling book “Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Govern­ments and Business Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich.” Trump was not the first po­tential president to catch Bannon’s eye. In 2011, Bannon released a two-hour documentary about Sarah Palin called “The Undefeated,” attempting to reshape the way that voters and the media viewed the former candidate for vice president. “The reason she draws this kind of fire is that she is an existential threat to the establishment,” Bannon told Fox News’s Sean Hannity during the film’s promotional tour. “The vested interests in our country are scared to death of her.” While Palin dithered about whether to run for president, the documentary flopped, grossing $116,381. But Bannon remained convinced that the GOP was ripe for a populist takeover. That, say former employees of the site, was what set up the site’s aggressive coverage of illegal immigration, and what turned into the most pro-Trump news source. In March 2014, after BuzzFeed’s McKay Coppins ran an unflattering report on what happened after traveling with Trump’s “fake” presidential campaign, Breitbart published a series of stories in which Trump allies attacked the reporter. “This nervous geek isn’t fit to tie the Donald’s wing tips,” Palin said, defending Trump against Coppins. When Trump became a candidate for president, the relationship deepened, and the billionaire frequently made himself available to break news on his race. He went to Breitbart to mock Jeb Bush for speaking Spanish and to attack Republicans for “folding” on trade. In a typical interview, conducted in November, Bannon joked that he himself had gone to “the poet’s version of business school — Harvard,” and he helped Trump dump criticism on the Republicans’ “consultant class.” Former employees of Breitbart describe a work environment that mirrors the Trump campaign. Reporters who couldn’t break or match news were chewed out with profanities; reporters on his good side were drawn into a hypercompetitive battle to own the news. All were encouraged to sign contracts with strict nondisclosure agreements. Several described Bannon pushing reluctant reporters onto stories by telling them: “I didn’t get where I am by being a Boy Scout.” In March 2016, after Trump won Florida and held a news conference, Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields tried to ask Trump’s then-campaign manager Corey Lewandowski a question and was pushed aside. Chat logs later obtained by BuzzFeed revealed that Breitbart leadership wanted Fields to lay off the story and for members of the team to avoid tweeting about it. Fields quit, followed by several Breitbart staffers, including longtime editor-at-large Ben Shapiro. “He’ll tell Trump he’s doing a fantastic job even if he isn’t,” Shapiro wrote Wednesday on his new site, The Daily Wire. “That’s how Bannon Svengalis political figures and investors — by investing them in his personal genius, then hollowing them out from the inside. There’s a reason Sarah Palin went from legitimate political figure to parody artist to Trump endorser, with Steve Bannon standing alongside her every step of the way.” “A lot of the people that you like and respect have targets on their backs as a result of Bannon’s ascent to the top,” wrote Ben Howe, an editor at the conservative blog Red State who had spoken out against Trump. “You have no idea how dangerous this man is. It is going to be score settling time for him if Trump wins. “ “If Donald Trump won the election, and Steve Bannon were his chief of staff, I would have legitimate fears about the use of government power to come after political enemies,” Shapiro said. “I don’t think Steve Bannon has principles.” But a current employee of Breitbart, who had not been authorized to speak for the record, disputed that characterization of his boss: “What he does is he gets the best out of people.” That, it would appear, is what Trump is hoping, as well.

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Chicago ‘Hits Back,’ Strips Trump of Honorary Street Designation

Chicago ‘Hits Back,’ Strips Trump of Honorary Street Designation Fran Spielman, Chicago Sun-Times, October 25, 2016 Chicago aldermen on Tuesday hit Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump where it hurts–in his formidable ego–for using a spike in homicides and shootings to paint a “distorted caricature” of the city. The City Council’s Transportation Committee unanimously agreed to strip Trump of a recognition he covets: “Trump Plaza,” the honorary designation for the east side of Wabash Avenue between Illinois Street and the Chicago River, outside the 96-story Trump International Hotel & Tower. “We can actually use his own words against him: ‘When you hit us, we hit back,’ ” said Transportation Committee Chairman Anthony Beale (9th). “You’ve hit Chicago numerous times. . . . When you hit Chicago, Chicago hits back.” {snip} As for the honorary street designation, one of the Trump Plaza signs already has been stolen. So only one more needs to be removed. That will be done post-haste, if the full City Council approves the punishment, thanks to a so-called “pending passage” letter that Beale promised to sign. Reilly said Trump no longer deserves the honor after making political hay at Chicago’s expense in a way that has damaged the city’s reputation on the global stage. Trump’s decision to portray Chicago as a “war zone” that needs stop-and-frisk during the first presidential debate was the final straw. “He was comparing us to a war-torn, third-world country. That was a set of comments that didn’t just insult me. It insulted anyone who loves this great city,” Reilly said. {snip}

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“MAXINE WATERS IN A GLITTERY COWBOY HAT” Goes To War With Trump Over Words Said To Grieving Widow

The left is going ballistic over supposed words said by President Trump to a grieving military widow. President Trump made a call to Myeshia Wilson that has been turned into a political football by the left to make Trump out to be crazy . Wilson s husband was killed in Niger while serving in our military.The media also wasted no time covering this story that does it s best to try and make Trump look as bad as possible Just another day in the life of the lefty media.Far left Congresswoman Frederica Wilson jumped right in to trash Trump after the call. She s following the left s narrative by claiming Trump is a sick man . It s pretty funny that Wilson calls Trump crazy while wearing a glittery cowgirl hat 24/7.According to NBC: He said, But you know he must ve known what he signed up for, the Democrat recounted Trump saying more than once during the call to express his sympathy. According to Wilson, the conversation lasted somewhere from three to five minutes. Everyone knows when you go to war you could possibly not come back alive but you don t remind a grieving widow of that, Wilson said. That s so insensitive. Trump didn t even remember his name, Wilson recalled Myeshia Johnson telling her after the call ended, the congresswoman told MSNBC s Morning Joe Wednesday. She hung up the phone and said, He didn t even remember his name, Wilson said. That s the hurting part. The White House said Tuesday that the president had called the families of all four service members who were killed. He offered condolences on behalf of a grateful nation and assured them their family s extraordinary sacrifice to the country will never be forgotten, the White House said.Asked about Wilson s characterization of the call, a White House official said Tuesday night that the president s conversations with the families of American heroes who have made the ultimate sacrifice are private. Trump hit back at the claims saying he has proof of what was said on the call:Democrat Congresswoman totally fabricated what I said to the wife of a soldier who died in action (and I have proof). Sad! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 18, 2017Wilson took no time in shooting back that Trump is a sick man . She s clearly milking this for all it s worth. It s sick that this Democrat would use this call to a grieving widow to bash our president.

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House panel okays Dodd-Frank revamp amid partisan rancor

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A House of Representatives panel on Tuesday approved a proposal to revamp the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law, after a hearing where lawmakers verbally tussled over rules enacted in the aftermath of the 2007-09 financial crisis. The Financial Services Committee voted to send the bill, introduced this summer by committee chairman, Republican Jeb Hensarling, to the full House to consider. No Democrat on the committee voted for the measure, which would allow banks to choose between complying with Dodd-Frank or meeting tougher capital requirements. It would also reorganize the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a watchdog created through Dodd-Frank that last week penalized Wells Fargo for creating millions of fake accounts under customers’ names. The 2010 Dodd-Frank law, passed in the wake of the financial crisis, has drawn the ire of most banks and Republicans in Congress. They have said Congress went too far in trying to clamp down on Wall Street and the law imposes burdensome requirements and gives regulators too much power. The CPFB has been a particular target for Republicans, who do not like that it is governed by a single director and say it reaches beyond its authority in enforcement. During the hearing, Democrats cited the Wells case, where the CFPB levied its largest-ever fine of $100 million, criticizing the panel’s Republican majority. Democrats said that without Dodd-Frank the U.S. government would have had no tools to fight the widespread fraud, which led to the firing of 5,300 Wells employees. “I am particularly disturbed that this bill would take away the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s ability to penalize companies for practices that are abusive to consumers,” said New York’s Carolyn Maloney, a Democrat, echoing many in her party. “The chairman’s bill, strips...from the CFPB its authority to punish abusive conduct, which means Wells Fargo would have gotten off even easier.” Meanwhile, Randy Neugebauer, the Texas Republican who has advocated creating a five-member commission to govern the CFPB, said the bureau has not been politically neutral and is not transparent. “I remain concerned that many bureau actions demonstrate regulatory paternalism that assumes the American consumer doesn’t know how to make choices for themselves,” he said at the hearing. Corresponding legislation has not been introduced in the Senate, and Obama would be unlikely to sign the bill even both chambers of the Republican-led Congress passed it. Dodd-Frank is one of the Democratic president’s signature pieces of legislation.

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It Begins: Supreme Court Rejects Racially Gerrymandered N.C. Districts

This the worst fear of Republicans, conservatives and billionaires. The Supreme Court has turned its back on the GOP s over-the-top racism and voter suppression. Two of North Carolina s congressional districts were so gerrymandered that they might as well spell out Whites Only on the map. But not for much longer Via Raw Story:The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday rejected a request to stay a ruling that two congressional districts in North Carolina were racially gerrymandered in a 2011 redistricting and needed to be redrawn within two weeks.A panel of federal judges this month barred elections in the majority black districts, the 1st and the 12th, until new maps are approved, calling the current maps unconstitutional. Congressional primaries in the state are set for March 15.This is only going to get worse for the GOP from here. When Republicans swept to power on a tidal wave of blinding rage and racism in 2010, they immediately started passing Voter ID laws, cut polling stations, reduced the voting hours and, of course, took gerrymandering to a whole new level. They knew that their base of angry old racists was dying, and the only way to stay in power was to rig the elections.But all of this relied on a Supreme Court that would turn a mostly blind eye to all but the most obviously racist voter suppression. With the death the Antonin Scalia, the Court will move to the left and then move left again under the next (Democratic) president. More lawsuits will be brought against Republican gerrymandering and with the precedent set, Republicans will be forced to draw more competitive districts and that will lead to the loss of the House.Now you know why conservatives are freaking out over filling Scalia s seat. As the Court slowly undoes the damage, expect to see the right become ever more hysterical.Featured image via Benn Stancil

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BAD NEWS FOR THE SPEAKER: Many Republicans Agree…Trump’s Debt Deal Was Better Than Paul Ryan’s

Trump knows the art of the deal like no one else! He d had enough of do-nothing Paul Ryan so he went around him and made a better deal with Democrats that actually helps the hurricane victims. The three month deal was much better than the commitment of 18 months that Speaker Ryan had proposed: President Trump shocked and angered Republicans on Wednesday by agreeing with Democrats on a bill to suspend the debt ceiling for three months, but by Thursday, Republican lawmakers and aides were acknowledging that Trump s plan was better for Republicans than the plan put forward by House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis.Many Republicans weren t all that happy with either proposal. Ryan was proposing an 18-month suspension of the debt ceiling that would have let the government keep borrowing as much as it needed, and said the long time frame was needed to provide for market stability.But Democrats said they could only agree to a three-month suspension since they wanted leverage more immediately for other issues they want to pursue in the coming weeks. Trump s decision to take the Democratic plan was seen by some as a betrayal of Republicans, and a sign Trump was abandoning the GOP on a key legislative package.After the dust settled, however, Republican lawmakers and aides made it clear they saw the three-month plan as a slight improvement over Ryan s plan.The reason was simple.Neither plan involved a commitment to new spending cuts as a condition for allowing more government borrowing, something many conservatives wanted to see. With that key piece lacking, many Republicans preferred a shorter term agreement for the same reason Democrats did: it will let them try much sooner to leverage the next debt ceiling fight for their own policy prescription, in this case, spending cuts.A source with the conservative House Freedom Caucus said that group has not met to discuss the plan that Trump settled on Wednesday. But this source said many members of the group seem to agree that both deals were bad because neither included a commitment to spending cuts. Lots of members think the three-month deal is bad, but so is an 18-month deal, this source said. But the source added that the shorter time frame will at least let them try again soon, and in that way, is better for Republicans. [HFC] members don t want to sit on their hands, the source said.HFC members, in particular, see the debt ceiling deadline as a chance to threaten not to vote for an increase in the borrowing limit until spending cuts are included. When the battle heats up again, the HFC is expected to push for a cap on federal spending based on a percentage of U.S. gross domestic product.The HFC is a relatively small group of conservative lawmakers known for clashing with House GOP leaders. The Republican Study Committee, in contrast, is more mainstream and is comprised of most House GOP lawmakers for the purpose of advancing conservative policies.But even the RSC indicated Wednesday that Trump s deal is better for Republicans than what Ryan was pushing. For example, RSC member Tom Cole, R-Okla., said Wednesday that he preferred Trump s plan over Ryan s. I think a short-term deal is much easier to vote for than an 18-month or two-year extension with no offsets, he said on MSNBC, describing the choices that were put before the GOP. Cole cast the deal Trump reached as a slight delay that will let Republicans try again soon for spending cuts. I think a much worse deal would have been to extend the debt ceiling with no spending cuts, he added. So we live to fight another day. For entire story: Washington Examiner

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Comment on Creating a National Security State ‘Democracy,’ Or How the American Political System Changed and No One Noticed by James Miller

By Tom Engelhardt, a co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of The United States of Fear as well as a history of the Cold War, The End of Victory Culture . He is a fellow of the Nation Institute and runs TomDispatch.com . His latest book is Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World . Originally published at TomDispatch < /p> To say that this is the election from hell is to insult hell. There’s been nothing like this since Washington forded the Rubicon or Trump crossed the Delaware or delivered the Gettysburg Address (you know, the one that began “Four score and eleven women ago…”) — or pick your own seminal moment in American history. Billions of words, that face, those gestures, the endless insults , the abused women and the emails, the 24/7 spectacle of it all… Whatever happens on Election Day, let’s accept one reality: we’re in a new political era in this country. We just haven’t quite taken it in. Not really. Forget Donald Trump. Doh! Why did I write that? Who could possibly forget the first presidential candidate in our history preemptively unwilling to accept election results? (Even the South in 1860 accepted the election of Abraham Lincoln before trying to wave goodbye to the Union.) Who could forget the man who claimed that abortions could take place on the day of or the day before actual birth? Who could forget the man who claimed in front of an audience of nearly 72 million Americans that he had never met the women who accused him of sexual aggression and abuse, including the People magazine reporter who interviewed him? Who could forget the candidate who proudly cited his positive polling results at rallies and in tweets, month after month, before (when those same polls turned against him) discovering that they were all “ rigged ”? Whatever you think of The Donald, who in the world — and I mean the whole wide world (including the Iranians ) — could possibly forget him or the election he’s stalked so ominously? When you think of him, however, don’t make him the cause of American political dysfunction. He’s just the bizarre, disturbed, and disturbing symptom of the transformation of the American political system. Admittedly, he is a one-of-a-kind “politician,” even among his associates in surging right-wing nationalist and anti-whatever movements globally. He makes France’s Marine Le Pen seem like the soul of rationality and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte look like a master tactician of our age. But what truly makes Donald Trump and this election season fascinating and confounding is that we’re not just talking about the presidency of a country, but of the country. The United States remains the great imperial state on Planet Earth in terms of the reach of its military and the power of its economy and culture to influence the workings of everything just about everywhere. And yet, based on the last strange year of election campaigning, it’s hard not to think that something — and not just The Donald — is unnervingly amiss on Planet America. The World War II Generation in 2016 Sometimes, in my fantasies (as while watching the final presidential debate), I perform a private miracle and bring my parents back from the dead to observe our American world. With them in the room, I try to imagine the disbelief many from that World War II generation would surely express about our present moment. Of course, they lived through a devastating depression, light years beyond anything we experienced in the Great Recession of 2007-2008, as well as a global conflagration of a sort that had never been experienced and — short of nuclear war — is not likely to be again. Despite this, I have no doubt that they would be boggled by our world and the particular version of chaos we now live with. To start at a global level, both my mother (who died in 1977) and my father (who died in 1983) spent decades in the nuclear age, the era of humanity’s greatest — for want of a better word — achievement. After all, for the first time in history, we humans took the apocalypse out of the hands of God (or the gods), where it had resided for thousands of years, and placed it directly in our own. What they didn’t live to experience, however, was history’s second potential deal-breaker, climate change, already bringing upheaval to the planet, and threatening a slow-motion apocalypse of an unprecedented sort. While nuclear weapons have not been used since August 9, 1945 , even if they have spread to the arsenals of numerous countries, climate change should be seen as a snail-paced version of nuclear war — and keep in mind that humanity is still pumping near-record levels of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. I imagine my parents’ amazement that the most dangerous and confounding issue on the planet didn’t get a single question , not to speak of an answer, in the three presidential debates of 2016, the four and a half hours of charges, insults, and interruptions just past. Neither a moderator, nor evidently an undecided voter (in the town hall second debate), nor either presidential candidate — each ready to change the subject on a moment’s notice from embarrassing questions about sexual aggression, emails, or anything else — thought it worth the slightest attention. It was, in short, a problem too large to discuss, one whose existence Donald Trump (like just about every other Republican) denies, or rather, in his case, labels a “hoax” that he uniquely blames on a Chinese plot to sink America. So much for insanity (and inanity) when it comes to the largest question of all. On a somewhat more modest scale, my mom and dad wouldn’t have recognized our political world as American, and not just because of Donald Trump. They would have been staggered by the money pouring into our political system — at least $6.6 billion in this election cycle according to the latest estimate, more than 10% of that from only 100 families. They would have been stunned by our 1% elections ; by our new Gilded Age ; by a billionaire TV celebrity running as a “populist” by riling up once Democratic working-class whites immiserated by the likes of him and his “brand” of casino capitalism, scam, and spectacle; by all those other billionaires pouring money into the Republican Party to create a gerrymandered Congress that will do their obstructionist bidding; and by just how much money can be “invested” in our political system in perfectly legal ways these days. And I haven’t even mentioned the Other Candidate, who spent all of August on the true “campaign trail,” hobnobbing not with ordinary Americans but with millionaires and billionaires (and assorted celebrities ) to build up her phenomenal “ war chest .” I would have to take a deep breath and explain to my parents that, in twenty-first-century America, by Supreme Court decree, money has become the equivalent of speech, even if it’s anything but “free.” And let’s not forget that other financial lodestone for an American election these days: the television news, not to speak of the rest of the media. How could I begin to lay out for my parents, for whom presidential elections were limited fall events, the bizarre nature of an election season that starts with media speculation about the next-in-line just as the previous season is ending, and continues more or less nonstop thereafter? Or the spectacle of talking heads discussing just about nothing but that election 24/7 on cable television for something like a full year, or the billions of ad dollars that have fueled this never-ending Super Bowl of campaigns, filling the coffers of the owners of cable and network news? We’ve grown strangely used to it all, but my mom and dad would undoubtedly think they were in another country — and that would be before they were even introduced to the American system as it now exists, the one for which Donald Trump is such a bizarre front man. What Planet Is This Anyway? I wish I still had my high school civics text. If you’re of a certain age, you’ll remember it: the one in which a man from Mars lands on Main Street, USA, to be lectured on the glories of American democracy and our carefully constructed, checked-and-balanced tripartite form of governance. I’m sure knowledge of that system changed life on Mars for the better, even if it was already something of a fantasy here on Earth in my parents’ time. After all, Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower — my mom and dad voted for Democrat Adlai Stevenson — was the one who, in his farewell address in 1961, first brought “the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power” and “the military-industrial complex” to the attention of the American people. Yes, all of that was already changing then, as a peacetime war state of unparalleled size developed in this country. Still, 30-odd years after my father’s death, surveying the American landscape, my parents might believe themselves on Mars. They would undoubtedly wonder what exactly had happened to the country they knew. After all, thanks to the Republican Party’s scorched-earth tactics in these last years in bipolar Washington, Congress, that collection of putative representatives of the people (now a crew of well-paid, well-financed representatives of the country’s special interests in a capital overrun with corporate lobbyists), hardly functions anymore. Little of significance makes it through the porticos of the Capitol. Recently, for instance, John McCain (usually considered a relatively “moderate” Republican senator) suggested — before walking his comments part way back — that if Hillary Clinton were elected president, his fellow Republican senators might decide a priori not to confirm a single Supreme Court justice she nominated during her tenure in office. That, of course, would mean a court now down to what looks like a permanent crew of eight would shrink accordingly. And his comments, which once would have shocked Americans to the core, caused hardly a ripple of upset or protest. On my tour of this new world, I might start by pointing out to my mom and dad that the U.S. is now in a state of permanent war , its military at the moment involved in conflicts in at least six countries in the Greater Middle East and Africa. These are all purely presidential conflicts, as Congress no longer has a real role in American war-making (other than ponying up the money for it and beating the drums to support it). The executive branch stands alone when it comes to the war powers once checked and balanced in the Constitution. And I wouldn’t want my parents to simply look abroad. The militarization of this country has proceeded apace and in ways that, I have not the slightest doubt, would shock them to their core. I could take my parents, for instance, to Grand Central Station in midtown Manhattan, their hometown and still mine, and on any day of the week they would see the once-inconceivable: actual armed soldiers on guard in full camo. I could mention that, at my local subway stop, I’ve several times noted a New York police department counterterror squad that could be mistaken for a military Special Ops team, assault rifles slung across their chests, and no one even stops and gawks anymore. I could point out that the police across the country increasingly have the look of military units and are supplied by the Pentagon with actual weaponry and equipment directly off distant U.S. battlefields, including armored vehicles of various sorts. I could mention that military surveillance drones, those precursors of future robotic warfare (and, for my parents, right out of the childhood sci-fi novels I used to read), are now regularly in American skies ; that advanced surveillance equipment developed in far-off war zones is now being used by the police here at home; and that, though political assassination was officially banned in the post-Watergate 1970s, the president now commands a formidable CIA drone force that regularly carries out such assassinations across large swaths of the planet, even against U.S. citizens , and without the say-so of anyone outside the White House, including the courts. I could mention that the president who, in my parents’ time, commanded one modest-sized secret army, the CIA’s paramilitaries, now essentially presides over a full-scale secret military, the Special Operations Command: 70,000 elite troops cocooned inside the larger U.S. military, including elite teams ready to be deployed on what are essentially executive missions across the planet. I could point out that, in the twenty-first century, U.S. intelligence has set up a global surveillance state that would have shamed the totalitarian powers of the previous century and that American citizens, en masse, are included in it; that our emails (a new concept for my parents) have been collected by the millions and our phone records made available to the state; that privacy, in short, has essentially been declared un-American. I would also point out that, on the basis of one tragic day and what otherwise has been the most modest of threats to Americans, a single fear — of Islamic terrorism — has been the pretext for the building of the already existing national security state into an edifice of almost unbelievable proportions that has been given once unimaginable powers, funded in ways that should amaze anyone (not just visitors from the American past), and has become the unofficial fourth branch of the U.S. government without either discussion or a vote. Little that it does — and it does a lot — is open to public scrutiny. For their own “safety,”“the People” are to know nothing of its workings (except what it wants them to know). Meanwhile, secrecy of a claustrophobic sort has spread across significant parts of the government. The government classified 92 million documents in 2011 and things seem not to have gotten much better since. In addition, the national security state has been elaborating a body of “ secret law ”— including classified rules, regulations, and interpretations of already existing law — kept from the public and, in some cases, even from congressional oversight committees. Americans, in other words, know ever less about what their government does in their name at home and abroad. I might suggest to my parents that they simply imagine the Constitution of the United States being rewritten and amended in secrecy and on the fly in these years without as much as a nod to “We, the People.” In this way, as our elections became elaborate spectacles, democracy was sucked dry and ditched in all but name — and that name is undoubtedly Donald J. Trump. Consider that, then, a brief version of how I might describe our new American world to my amazed parents. America as a National Security State None of this is The Donald’s responsibility. In the years in which a new American system was developing, he was firing people on TV. You could, of course, think of him as the poster boy for an America in which spectacle, celebrity, the gilded class of One Percenters, and the national security state have melded into a narcissistic, self-referential brew of remarkable toxicity. Whether Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump is elected president, one thing is obvious: the vast edifice that is the national security state, with its 17 intelligence agencies and enormous imperial military, will continue to elaborate itself and expand its power in our American world. Both candidates have sworn to pour yet more money into that military and the intelligence and Homeland Security apparatus that goes with it. None of this, of course, has much of anything to do with American democracy as it was once imagined. Someday perhaps, like my parents, “I” will be called back from the dead by one of my children to view with awe or horror whatever world exists. Long after the America of an unimaginable Donald J. Trump presidency or a far-more-imaginable Hillary Clinton version of the same has been folded into some god-awful, half-forgotten chapter in our history, I wonder what will surprise or confound “me” then. What version of our country and planet will “I” face in 2045? 0 0 0 0 0 0

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Not guilty: The power of nullification to counteract government tyranny

Not guilty: The power of nullification to counteract government tyranny By John W. Whitehead Posted on November 2, 2016 by John W. Whitehead “The people have the power, all we have to do is awaken that power in the people. The people are unaware. They’re not educated to realize that they have power. The system is so geared that everyone believes the government will fix everything. We are the government .”—John Lennon How do you balance the scales of justice at a time when Americans are being Tasered, tear-gassed, pepper-sprayed, hit with batons, shot with rubber bullets and real bullets, blasted with sound cannons, detained in cages and kennels , sicced by police dogs, arrested and jailed for challenging the government’s excesses, abuses and power-grabs? Politics won’t fix a system that is broken beyond repair. No matter who sits in the White House, the shadow government will continue to call the shots behind the scenes. Relying on the courts to restore justice seems futile. Indeed, with every ruling handed down, it becomes more apparent that we live in an age of hollow justice, with government courts, largely lacking in vision and scope, rendering narrow rulings focused on the letter of the law. This is true at all levels of the judiciary, but especially so in the highest court of the land, the U.S. Supreme Court, which is seemingly more concerned with establishing order and protecting government agents than with upholding the rights enshrined in the Constitution. Even s It doesn’t matter who the activists are (environmentalists, peaceniks, Native Americans, Black Lives Matter, Occupy, or the Bundys and their followers) or what the source of the discontent is (endless wars abroad, police shootings, contaminated drinking water, government land-grabs), the government’s modus operandi Just recently, in fact, an Oregon jury rejected the government’s attempts to prosecute seven activists In finding the defendants not guilty—of conspiracy to impede federal officers, of possession of firearms in a federal facility, a The Malheur occupiers were found not guilty despite the fact that they had guns in a federal facility (their lawyers argued the guns were “as much a statement of their rural culture as a cowboy hat or a pair of jeans”). They were found not guilty despite the fact that they used government vehicles (although they would argue that government property is public property available to all taxpayers). They were found not guilty despite the fact that they succeeded in occupying a government facility for six weeks, thereby preventing workers from performing their duties (as the Washington Post points out, this charge has also been used to prosecute extremist left-wingers and Earth First protesters As law professor Ilya Somin explains, jury nullification is the practice by which a jury refuses to convict someone accused of a crime if they believe the “law in question is unjust or the punishment is excessive .” According to former federal prosecutor Paul Butler, the doctrine of jury nullification is “premised on the idea that ordinary citizens, not government officials, should have the final say In a world of “ rampant overcriminalization ,” where the average citizen unknowingly breaks three laws a day, jury nullification acts as “ a check on runaway authoritarian criminalization Indeed, Butler believes so strongly in the power of nullification to balance the scales between the power of the prosecutor and the power of the people that he advises If you are ever on a jury in a marijuana case, I recommend that you vote “not guilty”—even if you think the defendant actually smoked pot, or sold it to another consenting adult. As a juror, you have this power under the Bill of Rights Not only should the punishment fit the crime, but the laws of the land should also reflect the concerns of the citizenry as opposed to the profit-driven priorities of Corporate America. This is wh Various cities and states have been using this historic doctrine with mixed results on issues as wide ranging as gun control and healthcare to “ claim freedom from federal laws they find onerous or wrongheaded For the rest of us who are dependent on the “fairness” of the system, there exists a multitude of ways in which justice can and does go wrong every day. Police misconduct. Prosecutorial misconduct. Judicial bias. Inadequate defense. Prosecutors who care more about winning a case than seeking justice. Judges who care more about what is legal than wha The real and manufactured events of recent years—the invasive surveillance, the extremism reports, the civil unrest, the protests, t Those protests in Ferguson , Baltimore and Baton Rouge to protest police brutality? The militarized police “ clad in Kevlar vests, helmets, and camouflage, armed with pistols, shotguns, automatic rifles, and tear gas ” turning towns into war zones? The kenneling Employ militant nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience And then, as I explain in more detail in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People llify the laws. Nullify everything the government does that is illegitimate, egregious or blatantly unconstitutional. Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His book (SelectBooks, 2015) is available online at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at This entry was posted in Commentary . Bookmark the

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UK queen and husband Philip celebrate 70 years of marriage, quietly

LONDON (Reuters) - Queen Elizabeth and husband Prince Philip mark their platinum wedding anniversary with a small family get-together on Monday, a far cry from the pomp and celebration which greeted their marriage 70 years ago. The couple married at London s Westminster Abbey on Nov. 20, 1947, just two years after the end of World War Two, in a glittering ceremony which attracted statesmen and royalty from around the world and huge crowds of cheering well-wishers. Seventy years on, no public events are planned, although the 91-year-old queen did acknowledge the occasion by appointing Philip a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order for his services to the sovereign. Elizabeth and her 96-year-old husband, who retired from active public life in August, will celebrate their milestone with a private party at Windsor Castle, the monarch s home to the west of London. That contrasts with their silver, golden and diamond wedding anniversaries when they attended thanksgiving services at the thousand-year-old Abbey, where the queen was crowned and where her grandson and his wife, William and Kate, were married in 2011. However, the Abbey itself will mark the occasion with a full peal of its bells involving 5,070 change of sequences, with the 70 reflecting the anniversary, which will last more than three hours. Congratulations to The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh as they celebrate their Platinum Wedding anniversary, Prime Minister Theresa May said on Twitter. They have devoted their lives to the service of the UK and the Commonwealth - my best wishes to them both on this special occasion. The wedding of Princess Elizabeth, as she then was, to the dashing naval officer Philip Mountbatten was seen as raising the nation s spirits amid an austere background of rationing and shortages that followed the war. Millions will welcome this joyous event as a flash of colour on the hard road we have to travel, said former Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Five years later, Elizabeth succeeded her father George VI on the throne and has ruled for the following 65 years, more than any other monarch in British history, with Philip by her side throughout. The support he gives to my grandmother is phenomenal, Prince Harry said in a documentary to mark her 60th year on the throne. Regardless of whether my grandfather seems to be doing his own thing, sort of wandering off like a fish down the river, the fact that he s there - I personally don t think that she could do it without him. While the couple s marriage has remained strong, three of their four children have seen their unions end in divorce, most notably heir Prince Charles s ill-fated union with his late first wife Princess Diana. He has, quite simply, been my strength and stay all these years, Elizabeth said in a speech to mark the couple s 50th wedding anniversary in 1997. Royal historian Hugo Vickers said the secret of their long marriage was their mutual support and devotion to duty. They don t waste a jot of time wondering whether we like them or not - they just get on with the job, he told Reuters. On the occasions when I have been lucky enough to see them together, they always look incredibly comfortable in each other s company.

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EU's Tusk says ready to ramp up sanctions against North Korea

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union is prepared to ramp up sanctions against North Korea after it conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test on Sunday, European Council President Donald Tusk said. The EU stands ready to sharpen its policy of sanctions and invites North Korea to restart dialogue on its programers without condition, Tusk said in a statement. We call on the UN Security Council to adopt further UN sanctions and show stronger resolve to achieve a peaceful decentralization of the Korean peninsula. The stakes are getting too high.

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American Funhouse: Manufacturing Consent

Behind the headlines - conspiracies, cover-ups, ancient mysteries and more. Real news and perspectives that you won't find in the mainstream media. Browse: Home / American Funhouse: Manufacturing Consent Essential Reading By Smoking Mirrors on September 8, 2011 Smoking Mirrors at his creative best writing about … well you decide what he’s writing about Hellstorm – Exposing The Real Genocide of Nazi Germany (Full Documentary) By wmw_admin on May 10, 2015 What happened in the aftermath of World War II has been one of the darkest and best kept secrets in world history. The Crucifixion of Jews Must Stop! By wmw_admin on August 21, 2010 The sacrifice of “six million Jews” was being talked about before Hitler rose to power. A photocopy from the American Hebrew dated Oct. 1919, speaks openly about a holocaust of six million Jews before declaring “Israel is entitled to a place in the sun”!! The Advent of the Anti-Christ By Rixon Stewart on August 2, 2010 A few words on the market meltdown and how it may assist the debut of a truly sinister figure Does God Play Dice with the Universe? By Rixon Stewart on December 1, 2003 Research into particle physics is revealing a world full of almost magical qualities. Could it be that this mysterious, puzzling world is in fact the world of the spirit – the spiritual world that saints and mystics throughout history have sought to explo “Holocaust” declared 7 years before there was a “Holocaust” By wmw_admin on December 13, 2014 The New York Times was already reporting of Jewish persecution and an ongoing “Holocaust” in May 31, 1936 Magic Thermite and the 9/11 Fairytale By Smoking Mirrors on April 15, 2009 The evidence is in and it’s irrefutable: scientists have discovered traces of hi-tech explosives in the WTC debris. Which means the UK/US/Israel will have to stage another event on the scale of 9/11 to counter the brushfire this report will ignite

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Anti-nuclear campaign ICAN says Nobel Peace Prize a 'great honor'

OSLO (Reuters) - The International Campaign for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons issued the following statement after winning the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday: It is a great honor to have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2017 in recognition of our role in achieving the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. This historic agreement, adopted on 7 July with the backing of 122 nations, offers a powerful, much-needed alternative to a world in which threats of mass destruction are allowed to prevail and, indeed, are escalating. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) is a coalition of non-governmental organizations in one hundred countries. By harnessing the power of the people, we have worked to bring an end to the most destructive weapon ever created the only weapon that poses an existential threat to all humanity. This prize is a tribute to the tireless efforts of many millions of campaigners and concerned citizens worldwide who, ever since the dawn of the atomic age, have loudly protested nuclear weapons, insisting that they can serve no legitimate purpose and must be forever banished from the face of our earth. It is a tribute also to the survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki the hibakusha and victims of nuclear test explosions around the world, whose searing testimonies and unstinting advocacy were instrumental in securing this landmark agreement. The treaty categorically outlaws the worst weapons of mass destruction and establishes a clear pathway to their total elimination. It is a response to the ever-deepening concern of the international community that any use of nuclear weapons would inflict catastrophic, widespread and long-lasting harm on people and our living planet. We are proud to have played a major role its creation, including through advocacy and participation in diplomatic conferences, and we will work assiduously in coming years to ensure its full implementation. Any nation that seeks a more peaceful world, free from the nuclear menace, will sign and ratify this crucial accord without delay. The belief of some governments that nuclear weapons are a legitimate and essential source of security is not only misguided, but also dangerous, for it incites proliferation and undermines disarmament. All nations should reject these weapons completely before they are ever used again. This is a time of great global tension, when fiery rhetoric could all too easily lead us, inexorably, to unspeakable horror. The specter of nuclear conflict looms large once more. If ever there were a moment for nations to declare their unequivocal opposition to nuclear weapons, that moment is now. We applaud those nations that have already signed and ratified the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and we urge all others to follow their lead. It offers a pathway forward at a time of alarming crisis. Disarmament is not a pipe dream, but an urgent humanitarian necessity. We most humbly thank the Norwegian Nobel Committee. This award shines a needed light on the path the ban treaty provides towards a world free of nuclear weapons. Before it is too late, we must take that path.

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Earthquake of magnitude 5.2 strikes near Iran's capital

LONDON (Reuters) - An earthquake of magnitude 5.2 struck a town near the Iranian capital Tehran on Wednesday night, state media reported, but there were no initial reports of casualties or significant damage. Last month, a 7.3-magnitude earthquake hit villages and towns in Iran s western Kermanshah province along the mountainous border with Iraq, killing 620 people and injuring thousands of others. Authorities said they were gathering information about the latest quake, which hit in the late evening at a depth of 7 km (4 miles). They asked residents to remain calm but be prepared for possible aftershocks. The epicenter of the quake was 3 km from the city of Malard, and not far from Meshkin Dasht, which sits about 50 km west of Tehran, state news agency IRNA said. The quake was also felt in Alborz, Qazvin, Qom, Gilan and Markazi provinces, according to state media. There have been no reports of casualties or damage, Behnam Saeedi, a spokesman for Iran s National Disaster Management Organization, was quoted as saying by the semi-official ILNA news agency. In Tehran and other cities, residents flooded into streets and parks, fearing a stronger aftershock. Some set up tents to spend the night outside, and lit fires. Tasnim news agency quoted Minister of Sports Masoud Soltanifar as saying sport centers in city of Karaj in Alborz province, and Eslamshahr in southern Tehran were open to the public to spend the night. Some people also took refuge at the mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic in southern Tehran. Minister of Energy Reza Ardakanian was quoted by ISNA news agency as saying that Amirkabir Dam, one hour west of Tehran, remained intact and supply of water and electricity was not disrupted in any way. Schools, universities and government offices will be closed in Tehran, Alborz and Qom provinces on Thursday, according to the state television.

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Sanders to build base outside of Washington in new Democratic post

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senator Bernie Sanders, a former Democratic presidential candidate, said on Thursday he will help rebuild party support outside of Washington and craft a new economic message for all Americans. Sanders, who will become outreach chair on the Senate Democrats leadership team, will try to engage Americans who feel disconnected from the political process. Sanders is an Independent from Vermont but tends to vote with Democrats. “The real action to transform America won’t take place on Capitol Hill, it will be in the grassroots America among millions struggling economically and young people,” Sanders said at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. Democrat Charles Schumer of New York, elected the Senate’s new minority leader on Wednesday, said Sanders will join his 10-member leadership team. He wants to harness Sanders’ popularity with young and working class voters during the hard-fought primary battle with Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Democrats are regrouping after the upset victory of Republican Donald Trump and after Republicans gained control of the Senate and House and made big gains in control of state legislatures. Sanders, who will also become the ranking Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, said he will make sure the panel represents the needs of working families, not billionaires. One problem for the Democrats is while they make the point that the economy is better off today than it was eight years ago, it has not improved for the middle class for decades, he said. “What the Democrats I think too often have ignored is that for the last forty years ... the middle class of this country has been shrinking,” Sanders told the breakfast, saying that real wages have gone down while income inequality has risen. Sanders said he supports fresh leadership for the Democratic National Committee, the party’s organization and has endorsed Congressman Keith Ellison, of Minnesota, as the new leader of the party. Ellison, who is a progressive and a Muslim, reflects the diversity of the party, Sanders and other Democrats say. Sanders also said that Hillary Clinton should play a key role. After her defeat last week, Sanders said he did not talk to her directly, only on a conference call. “She ended up getting more votes that Mr. Trump and it goes without saying that she has a very important role to play about the future of the Democratic party,” he said.

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MORE TRANSPARENCY: CLINTON’S REFUSE TO RELEASE HILLARY’S HEALTH RECORDS

Karl Rove is suggesting Hillary suffered brain damage following her blood clot.On Sunday, Hillary Clinton s campaign manager would not commit to releasing her health records during the 2016 campaign.Face the Nation host John Dickerson pointed out that Hillary Clinton had a big health scare when she was secretary of state and asked campaign manager Robby Mook, will she release her medial records as part of this campaign? I will let Hillary decide that, Mook answered. But I can tell you she has been hitting the campaign trail hard. In 2012, Clinton had to delay her Benghazi testimony to Congress after she fell and suffered a concussion. She later was treated for a blood clot in her brain, which experts said could have been life threatening. Though Clinton joked about her cracked head in emails that the State Department recently released, Bill Clinton revealed last year that Hillary s injuries required six months of very serious work to get over. On the stump this weekend, Clinton tried to deflect concerns about her age by saying that she would be the youngest woman president if elected to the White House.Via:Breitbart News

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GEORGIA REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE’S Neighborhood Blocked Off After Threatening Discovery in Mailboxes: “Your neighbor Karen Handel is a dirty fascist”

We just reported on the Virginia shooter s message to Karen Handel (see below) and now this. Is anyone going to want to be a candidate for anything if this threatening behavior continues? The left has gotten so dangerous in their rhetoric and their violence. Whoever did this should be punished to the max to set an example for other leftists.Georgia Republican Karen Handel s neighborhood HAS BEEN BLOCKED OFF after reports that letters containing a white powdery substance and calling Handel a dirty fascist were left at homes of her neighbors.Police officers have been going from mailbox to mailbox after finding the suspicious package, according to local reports, which also indicate that Roswell police continue to flood to the area.The content of the threatening letter, posted below, contains graphic language. Your neighbor Karen Handel is a dirty fascist cunt but I m sure you already knew that, the letter says, according to a picture. Take a whiff of the powder and join her in the hospital you Bourgeoisie motherfuckers. RESIST THE FASCIST TAKEOVER!!!!, it says. STRING UP THE COLLABORATORS! The situation is being monitored by local WSB-TV by a helicopter.Handel acknowledged the reports and said her campaign was coordinating with local law enforcement. This afternoon we had some suspicious packages delivered to our house and to our neighbors, Handel said. The packages contained threatening letters and a suspicious substance. The police were quickly notified and street is now being blocked off. We will continue to coordinate with law enforcement as necessary. OUR PREVIOUS REPORT ON HANDEL S RESPONSE TO THE VIRGINIA SHOOTER:Candidate Handel s Excellent Response to Alexandria Shooter Calling Her A Republican B**ch PLEASE NOTE THAT HANDEL AND DEMOCRAT JOHN OSOFF ARE IN A BATTLE THAT WILL TAKE PLACE ON JUNE 20TH IN THE 6TH DISTRICT GEORGIA RUNOFF GET OUT AND VOTE HANDEL!IF YOU WANT TO DONATE TO KAREN HANDEL: DONATE HEREKaren Handel, the Republican candidate for Congress in Georgia s sixth district, on Wednesday afternoon addressed that morning s shooting at a Republican congressional baseball team practice.A gunman who police identified as James T. Hodgkinson opened fire on Republican lawmakers practicing for a charity baseball game in Alexandria, Va., wounding five people including House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R., La.). Hodgkinson had penned a Facebook rant against Handel last week. My thoughts are with the victims of this morning s despicable, unprovoked attack on the Republican congressional softball team, wrote Handel, Georgia s former secretary of state. Representative Scalise is a friend, and my heart goes out to him and his family. Steve and I wish him and the others wounded a speedy recovery. They remain in our thoughts and prayers. I also want to commend the heroic actions of the Capitol Police officers who clearly prevented today s attack from being a much bigger tragedy, she wrote.Handel also addressed expletive comments that Hodgkinson made about her on social media.Hodgkinson posted an article about Handel to his Facebook, calling her a Republican Bitch who wants People to Work for Slave Wages, NBC affiliate WXIA reported. Republican Bitch Wants People to Work for Slave Wages, when a Livable Wage is the Only Way to Go! Vote Blue, It s Right for You! Hodgkinson wrote on Facebook. I am aware that the suspect recently made vile comments about me on social media, Handel said in her statement. It also appears that the suspect targeted members of Congress specifically because he disagreed with their views. Hodgkinson s social media posts indicate he was a supporter of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) and loathed President Donald Trump and Republican policies.Handel echoed calls by others, including House Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), for bipartisan unity following the attack. We should not allow our political differences to escalate to violent attacks. We must all refuse to allow the politics of our country to be defined in this way, she wrote. Now more than ever, we must unite as a one nation under God. It is incumbent upon all of us to work together in a civil and productive way, even when we disagree. READ MORE: WFB

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Michelle Obama Deletes Hillary Clinton From Twitter

Michelle Obama Deletes Hillary Clinton From Twitter When Hillary goes low, Michelle goes BYE! Posted on November 1, 2016 by Baxter Dmitry in News , US // 1 Comment Michelle Obama has scrubbed all references to Hillary Clinton from both of her Twitter accounts as news breaks that Clinton is under two different FBI investigations involving four FBI offices. The @FLOTUS account has been wiped clean of all traces of Hillary, and @MichelleObama , a verified page with almost six million followers, has been scrubbed all the way back to 2013. Is Michelle performing a last minute tidy up, clearing out the clutter before the dumpster fire of the Democratic campaign finally burns out? RELATED CONTENT Obama Administration Begs Court Not To Depose Hillary Clinton Are the Washington elite preparing to move on from Hillary? Bernie Sanders has also begun to change his tune. A Twitter post today sure didn’t sound like it was referring to Hillary Clinton. Now is the time for our next president to rally people against Wall Street and corporate greed and stand up for the declining middle class. — Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) October 30, 2016 Bernie was asked by a supporter about the write-in thing – and his response might surprise you. “ If you want to write me in here [Vermont], I think it’s fine.”

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Charlottesville and the Problem of Left & Right Identity Politics in America

. By Gilad AtzmonIn my recent book Being in Time a Post Political Manifesto, I pointed out that the West and America in particular have been led into a disastrous Identity (ID) clash. This week in Virginia we saw a glimpse of it.In the book I argue that the transition from traditional Left ideology into New Left politics can be understood as the aggressive advocacy of sectarian and divisive ideologies. While the old Left made an effort to unite us all: gays, blacks, Jews or Whites into a political struggle against capital, the New Left has managed to divide us into ID sectors. We are trained to speak as a : as a Jew, as a black, as a Lesbian. The new left has taught us to identify with our biology, with our gender, sex orientation and our skin colour, as long as it isn t White of course.In Being in Time, I noted that it was a question of time before White people would also decide to identify with their biology. And this is exactly what we saw in Virginia last weekend.Tragically, ID politics is a very dangerous political game. It is designed to pull people apart. It is there to introduce conflict and division. ID politics doesn t offer a harmonious vision of society as a whole. Quite the opposite, it leads to an increasingly fractured social reality. Take, for instance, the continuous evolution of the LGBT group. It is constantly expanding to include more and more sectarian sexually oriented social subgroupings (LGBTQ, LGBTQAI and even LGBTQIAP ).In the New Left social reality, we, the people are shoved into ID ghettos that are defined by our biology: skin colour, sexual orientation, the Jewish mother, etc.Instead of what we need to do: fight together against big money, the bankers, the megacorporations, we fight each other, we learn to hate each other. We even drive our cars over each other.I am opposed to all forms of ID politics, whether it is White, Black, Jewish, Gender or sex oriented. But, obviously if Jews, Gays and others are entitled to identify with their biology , white people are entitled to do the same. I think that universalism is what we used to call it when we still cared about intellectual integrity.The problem created by ID politics is extremely grave.ID politics doesn t offer a prospect of peace and harmony. Within the context of ID politics, we cannot envisage a peaceful resolution of the current ID clash. Can anyone foresee the LGBT community embracing KKK activists into their notion of diverse society? The same can be said about the KKK, are they going to open their gates to cultural Marxists?ID politics equals ID clash, an irreconcilable conflict with no end, the complete destruction of American and, to a certain extent, Western civilisation. This may explain why George Soros and his open society are invested in this battle. As long as the working people are fighting each other, no one bothers to challenge the root cause of our current dystopia, namely the banks, global capitalism, wall street, Mammonism and so on.The remedy is clear. America and the West must, at once, break away from all forms of ID politics. Instead of celebrating that which separates us, we must seek what unites and makes us into one people. I am advocating a radical spiritual, ideological and metaphysical transition. Whether or not we like to admit it, these moments of unity are often invoked by waves of patriotism, nationalism and religious figures. But they could also be inspired by the spirit of justice, equality compassion and love. Neither the New Left or the Alt Right offers any of the above. They are equally invested in Identitarian ideologies. The electoral success of Trump, Corbyn and even Sanders or Le Pen points at a general human fatigue. Readiness for change is in the air.This article was originally published at Gilad Atzmon s blog(An excerpt from Being in Time a Post Political Manifesto pg. 49) The Identitarian Shift & the Primacy of the Symptom ID politics manifests itself as a set of group identification strategies. It subdues the I in favour of symbolic identifiers: the ring on the appropriate ear, the nose stud, the type of skullcap, the colour of the scarf and so on.Within the ID political cosmos, newly emerging tribes (gays, lesbians, Jews, Blacks, Whites,vegans, etc.) are marched into the desert, led towards an appealing promised land , where the primacy of the symptom (gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, skin colour etc.) is supposed to evolve into a world in itself. But this liberal utopia is in practice a sectarian and segregated amalgam of ghettos that are blind to each other. It has nothing in common with the promised universal, inclusive cosmos. The personal is political, as the common feminists and liberal preachers have disseminated since the 1960s, is a phrase designed to disguise the obvious; the personal is actually the antithesis of the political. It is, in fact, the disparity between the personal and the political that makes humanism into an evolving exchange known as history. Within the Identitarian discourse, the so-called personal replaces true and genuine individualism with phony group identification it suppresses all sense of authenticity, rootedness and belonging, in favour of a symbolism and imaginary collectivism that is supported by rituals and empty soundbites.Why are we willing to subject ourselves to politics based on biology, and who wrote this new theology found in pamphlets and in the growing numbers of ID Studies textbooks? Is there a contemporaneous God? And who created the pillar of cloud we are all to follow?It is clear that elements within the New Left, together with Jewish progressives and liberal intelligentsia, have been at the heart of the formation of the ideological foundation of ID politics. At least traditionally, both Jewish liberals and the Left were associated with opposition to any form of exclusive political agenda based on biology or ethnicity. Yet, one may wonder why does the New Left espouse such an exclusivist, sectarian and biologically driven agenda?Gilad Atzmon s book Being In Time: A Post Political Manifesto is available now on: Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com and gilad.co.uk. READ MORE ALT RIGHT NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire ALT RIGHT FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @ 21WIRE.TV

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U.S. Senate candidate Moore's wife says 'he will not step down'

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The wife of Republican U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore of Alabama said on Friday her husband would not end his campaign in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations, dismissing reports about his past behavior toward some women as political attacks. “He will not step down,” Kayla Moore said at a news conference on the steps of the state capitol in Montgomery. “He will not stop fighting for the people of Alabama.” The former Alabama Supreme Court chief justice’s campaign has been in turmoil since the Washington Post published a story last week detailing the accounts of three women who claim Moore pursued them while they were teenagers and he was in his 30s. More women have since spoken out with allegations of their own. Reuters has been unable to independently confirm any of the accusations. Before the allegations came to light, Moore was heavily favored to defeat Democrat Doug Jones in the special election next month. Two polls this week showed Moore now trailing Jones. Fox News released a poll on Thursday putting Jones ahead with 50 percent to 42 percent for Moore. But Moore’s embattled candidacy also got a boost on Thursday, when the Alabama Republican Party said it would continue to support him, putting it at odds with Republican leaders in Washington who want him to withdraw. Republican Alabama Governor Kay Ivey on Friday told reporters she would vote for Moore, emphasizing the importance of keeping Republican control of the U.S. Senate. Asked whether she believed the women accusing Moore of sexual improprieties or unwanted romantic overtures, Ivey said, “the timing is a little curious but at the same time I have no reason to disbelieve them.” The White House has said President Donald Trump finds the allegations troubling and believes Moore should step aside if they are true. White House legislative director Marc Short on Friday said Trump previously backed Moore’s opponent, Luther Strange, in the primary contest and that Moore’s explanations “so far have not been satisfactory.” “At this point, we believe it is up to the people of Alabama to make a decision,” Short told CNN. “The president chose a different candidate.” During the 2016 presidential campaign, several women went public with accusations that Trump had in the past made unwanted sexual advances or inappropriate personal remarks about them. Trump denied the accusations, accused rival Democrats and the media of a smear campaign, and went on to be elected president. Kayla Moore noted that the Washington Post endorsed Hillary Clinton over Trump in last year’s election, accusing it of being part of a concerted effort to push back against anti-establishment conservative candidates. “All of the very same people who were attacking President Trump are also attacking us,” she said. The Post’s editorial board, which endorsed Clinton, works separately from the reporters and editors who work on news stories, as is common at most newspapers.

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SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS Calls Out Fake News…Reporter Yells…She Shoots Back Cool As A Cucumber [Video]

A screaming White House reporter stood up and ranted at Sarah Huckabee Sanders after she called out fake news in the media. The reporter raised his voice and told the deputy press secretary that she was making inflammatory comments about the press Can you believe that? He s got nerve!Earlier in the press conference, Sanders had called out the press for a constant barrage of fake news directed at this president .Sanders called out CNN for being repeatedly wrong and referenced a Project Veritas video where a CNN producer was recorded calling the Russia investigation story mostly bullshit. If true, Sanders said, it was a disgrace to journalism. If the media can t be trusted to report the news, then that s a dangerous place for America, she said.Read more: WFB

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British PM Refuses To Withdraw Support For Saudi Arabia

Posted on October 27, 2016 by Carol Adl in News // 0 Comments The British Prime Minister has refused to withdraw her support for UK weapons sales to Saudi Arabia. Theresa May also refused to withdraw support for Saudi Arabia’s place on the UN Human Rights Council despite the Kingdoms atrocities in Yemen. During a debate at the House of Commons in Parliament on Wednesday, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn confronted May over Saudi violations and called for an end to the weapons sales (see video below) Press TV reports: “The issues are being investigated… We are very clear that the only solution that is going to work for Yemen is actually to make sure that we have the political solution that will give stability in Yemen,” May told Corbyn and the parliamentarians. Instead of answering the direct question, May spoke about the UK government’s contribution to the humanitarian aid provided to the crisis-torn country. Corbyn also questioned May’s support for Saudi Arabia’s membership in the UN Human Rights Council. A crucial vote on the membership of Riyadh in the council will take place later this month. London has repeatedly been blamed by human rights groups, including Oxfam and Amnesty International, for fueling the Yemeni war by supplying Saudi Arabia with weapons. Since the conflict began last year, the British government has approved more than £3 billion ($3.7 billion) in arms sales to the Saudis and military contractors hope more deals are in the pipeline. Yemen has been under almost daily airstrikes by Saudi Arabia since March 2015. International sources put the death toll from the aggression at almost 10,000. Rights groups have also condemned the Kingdom’s crackdown on dissent and prosecution of pro-reform activists.

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Hillary Clinton Is DEFINITELY Going To Win. Here’s How We Know (DETAILS)

Hillary Clinton Is DEFINITELY Going To Win. Here’s How We Know (DETAILS) By Carrie MacDonald The famous electoral prognosticator Larry Sabato recently shocked a CNN host when he boldly proclaimed that he believed Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton would win the presidency with 352 electoral votes. Looking at the math, though 352 may be a stretch, we WILL inaugurate the first woman president on January 20, 2017. The Road To 270 As I discussed in detail in my Electoral College 101 piece for Liberal America , a presidential candidate must win 270 of the 538 total electoral college votes in order to win the presidency. It is possible for this to happen even when a candidate does not win the popular vote, as we saw in the election of 2000. As it stands now, with fewer than two weeks to go, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump could win all the states that are expected to vote red, including the ones that just “lean” Republican, AND every single swing state, and he still will not win the election. All those states would give him just 245 votes. That’s 25 short of a win. On the other hand, if Clinton wins every state that is expected to vote blue, as she is expected to do, she will have 293 electoral votes. The Cook Political Scorecard And FiveThirtyEight The Cook Political Report , a non-partisan newsletter, published the following scorecard on October 27, 2016: Screenshot via The Cook Political Report As you can see, the math looks grim for the Donald. If he wins the 179 votes he’s expected to win PLUS the 66 that are the tossup votes, he’s still short. The Cook report still has Florida as a tossup (swing) state. However, Nate Silver’s current projection for that state — the most coveted of all swing states in any presidential race — has Clinton winning. Screenshot via Fivethirtyeight.com The New York Times has a great interactive tool on The Upshot portion of their website as well. The tool assumes certain electoral votes going to each candidate, and you can try different scenarios to see how many paths to victory each candidate has. As the math goes, if you give every blue state shown above to Clinton, she wins. The Upshot puts Clinton’s chances of winning at 92 percent. Basically, only something monumentally catastrophic will cause her to lose this election. You Still Have To VOTE Of course, despite our headline here, everyone still has to vote to make this a reality. If Democrats get complacent, then that map could get a lot redder. That’s what tends to happen in “off-year” elections, since the Republicans are a lot more likely to get out and vote. It’s why we have a House of Representatives that has been gerrymandered to the point that it’s nearly impossible for the Democrats to regain control of it. In 2012, House Democrats received more votes than Republicans, yet the Republicans retained control. Why? Redistricting. Had more Democrats voted in 2010, we may not be in such a predicament. Districts are redrawn at least once every 10 years, and the party that controls each state’s legislature generally tends to redraw them to their party’s favor. While some (myself included) may argue that districts should be drawn in a much more equitable manner, the fact remains that, currently, the party in power draws the district to their favor. So go out and vote. Not just this year, but in every election. Every time. Vote in your local elections. Vote in primaries and general elections. Make your voice heard. And let’s make this map even more blue.

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Re: Vladimir Putin

« Reply #328 on: August 24, 2015, 07:35:18 PM » Didn't really think Putin was falsely fagging.. Oh well. The Assassination of Russia - FSB false flag bombings of 1999 https://youtu.be/y9cRoXgawVA In the fall of 1999, a wave of bloody apartment bombings swept through Russian cities, killing 293 people and causing widespread panic. Although blamed on the Chechen terrorists that the Russians were fighting in the Second Chechen War, FSB agents were caught planting the exact same type of bombs as in the other blasts later that month. The government claimed that the bomb was part of a security exercise and Vladimir Putin came to power as the next Russian President on the back of the terror wave later that year. http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a092299ryazanbomb#a092299ryazanbomb On the evening of September 22, 1999, several residents of an apartment block in Ryazan, a city about a hundred miles south of Moscow, observe three strangers at the entrance of their building. The two young men and a woman are carrying large sacks into the basement. The residents notice that the car’s plate has been partially covered with paper, although they can still see a Moscow license plate number underneath. They decide to call the local police. After several bombings of apartment buildings in Moscow earlier in the month (see September 9, 1999 and September 13, 1999), their vigilance is understandable. When the police arrive, around 9:00 p.m., they uncover what appears to be huge bomb: three sacks of sugar filled with a granular powder, connected to a detonator and a timing device set for 5:30 a.m. The bomb squad uses a gas testing device to confirm that it is explosive material: it appears to be hexagen, the military explosive that is believed to have been used to blow up two Moscow blocks. The residents are evacuated. Then the bomb carted away and turned over to the FSB. (In an apparent oversight, the FSB fails to collect the detonator, which is photographed by the local police.) The following morning, September 23, the government announces that a terrorist attack has been averted. They praise the vigilance of the local people and the Ryazan police. Police comb the city and find the suspects’ car. A telephone operator for long-distance calls reports that she overheard a suspicious conversation: the caller said there were too many police to leave town undetected and was told, “Split up and each of you make your own way out.” To the police’s astonishment, the number called belongs to the FSB. Later this day, the massive manhunt succeeds: the suspects are arrested. But the police are again stunned when the suspects present FSB credentials. On Moscow’s orders, they are quietly released. On September 24, the government reverses itself and now says the bomb was a dummy and the whole operation an exercise to test local vigilance. The official announcement is met with disbelief and anger. Ryazan residents, thousands of whom have had to spend the previous night outdoors, are outraged; local authorities protest that they were not informed. However, the suspicion of a government provocation is not widely expressed and press coverage fades after a few days. It is only several months later that an investigation by the independent weekly Novaya Gazeta re-ignites the controversy (see February 20, 2000 and Fall 1999). The government’s explanations will fail to convince skeptics (see March 23, 2000). The Ryazan incident later becomes the main reason for suspecting the government of having orchestrated previous bombings. The controversy is then widely reported in the international press. [BBC, 9/24/1999; MOSCOW TIMES, 9/24/1999; CNN, 9/24/1999; BALTIMORE SUN, 1/14/2000; LOS ANGELES TIMES, 1/15/2000; MOSCOW TIMES, 1/18/2000; INDEPENDENT, 1/27/2000; OBSERVER, 3/12/2000; NEWSWEEK, 4/3/2000; INSIGHT, 4/17/2000; NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE, 4/30/2002; LE MONDE (PARIS), 11/17/2002; SATTER, 2003; MOSCOW TIMES, 9/24/2004]Entity Tags: Russian Federal Security Service, Novaya GazetaTimeline Tags: Alleged Use of False Flag Attacks, Complete 911 TimelineFebruary 20, 2000: Ryazan Bomb Was Real, Local Police Tell Independent NewspaperEdit event Yuri TkachenkoYuri Tkachenko [Source: Terror99.ru]In its February 14-20, 2000, issue, the Russian newsweekly Novaya Gazeta reports that Ryazan police officers insist that the bomb they uncovered and defused was real. On September 22, 1999, a bomb was discovered in the city of Ryazan, about 100 miles south of Moscow. After the chief bomb suspects were discovered to be FSB agents, the government claimed the bomb was a dummy and the incident was a training exercise (see September 22-24, 1999). But the bomb-squad officer, Yuri Tkachenko, is adamant that it was a professionally-prepared, military-style bomb. He defends the accuracy of his sophisticated gas-testing device which identified the explosives as hexogen. The article provokes much comment in Russia but is ignored by the government. [SATTER, 2003, PP. 29]Entity Tags: Novaya Gazeta, Yuri TkachenkoTimeline Tags: Alleged Use of False Flag AttacksMarch 23, 2000: Broadcast on Ryazan Incident Fails to End ControversyEdit event Alexander Zdanovich.Alexander Zdanovich. [Source: Terror99.ru]A team of FSB officials, led by Alexander Zdanovich, agrees to a televised meeting with angry and suspicious residents of Ryazan, hoping to put down rumors of a government provocation and shore up the credibility of the official account. In September 1999 a bomb was found in the basement of a building in Ryazan and the people arrested for planting the bomb were discovered to be FSB agents. The government then claimed the incident was merely a training exercise, but residents suspect the FSB wanted to bomb the building to create a fake terrorist incident (see September 22-24, 1999). Zdavonich apologizes for the inconvenience suffered by Ryazan inhabitants but then suggests the renewed interest in the event is a campaign ploy: “For months, there was no interest and there were no publications. The theme was activated on the eve of the presidential election with the most fantastic details in order to accuse the FSB of planning a real explosion with the death of people. This is actively used in the political struggle.” (The presidential election is only one week away.) A soldier named Alexei Pinyaev has claimed that he worked at a nearby base where hexogen was reportedly kept in sacks marked “sugar” (see Fall 1999). The commander of the base denies that there was any soldier named Pinyaev, but the Novaya Gazeta reporter who had found Pinyaev then shows pictures of him and plays a recording of his interview. The FSB will not let its three agents appear in public or allow journalists to interview them. The broadcast does not allow any discussion of a possible connection between the Ryazan incident and the apartment bombings in Moscow earlier that month (see September 9, 1999 and September 13, 1999). The FSB officials did not have good explanations for the fact that local authorities, including its own FSB office in Ryazan, were not informed of the supposed exercise, or for the lack of medical resources for the thousands of people forced to spend the night outdoors. According to David Satter, a long-time correspondent in Moscow for the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times who believes the Ryazan incident was a failed provocation, the broadcast only serves to increase the public’s misgivings. [SATTER, 2003, PP. 30, 261-264]Entity Tags: Alexander Zdanovich, Russian Federal Security Service, Alexei PinyaevTimeline Tags: Alleged Use of False Flag AttacksMarch 6, 2002: Russian Billionaire Berezovsky Accuses FSB, Putin of Terror PlotEdit event Boris Berezovsky.Boris Berezovsky. [Source: BBC]At a well-publicized press conference in London, where he now lives in self-imposed exile, Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky accuses President Putin of involvement in an alleged FSB plot behing the 1999 apartment bombings (see September 22-24, 1999, September 9, 1999 and September 13, 1999). After an overview of many well-known facts about the bombings and the controversial Ryazan security exercise, as well as a documentary called “The Assassination of Russia”, Berezovsky introduces the testimony of Nikita Chekulin. According to Chekulin, an explosive expert who says he was recruited by the FSB, large quantities of hexogen were purchased through his research institute, the Russian Conversion Explosives Center (Rosconversvzryvtsenter), and shipped under false labels in 1999-2000 out of military bases to cover organizations linked to the FSB. Chekulin says the FSB suppressed a governmental investigation into the scheme. “I am sure the bombings were organized by the FSB,” Berezovsky declares. “The FSB thought that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin would not be able to come to power through lawful democratic means.” [BBC, 3/6/2002; GUARDIAN, 3/6/2002; WASHINGTON POST, 3/6/2002; KOMMERSANT (MOSCOW), 3/6/2002; MONITOR (JAMESTOWN FOUNDATION), 3/6/2002; SBS, 5/21/2003]Entity Tags: Nikita Chekulin, Russian Federal Security Service, Boris Berezovsky, Vladimir PutinTimeline Tags: Alleged Use of False Flag Attacks Logged

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Speaker At Trump Rally Says He Hopes Hillary Clinton Dies In A Fiery Car Crash (VIDEO)

Speaker At Trump Rally Says He Hopes Hillary Clinton Dies In A Fiery Car Crash (VIDEO) By Andrew Bradford on October 30, 2016 Subscribe When historians write accounts of the 2016 race for the White House, it’s very likely that one of the things which will get special attention is the level of violence–both physical and verbal–which has emanated from those who slavishly support GOP nominee Donald Trump. If you doubt this fact, consider what was said earlier today at a Trump rally being held in Las Vegas. Author and self-described “capitalist evangelist” Wayne Allyn Root was giving a rambling speech as a warm-up before Der Fuhrer Donald took the stage, and while portions of it were comparable to the rantings of Charles Manson after too much caffeine, it was the language Root used (highly militaristic and warlike) that you cannot help but notice. At various points in his unhinged diatribe, Root used the following phrases : “Trump warriors” “Trump army” “Trump revolution” Then, in full psychotic rant, Root attempted to mix together plot elements from the O.J. Simpson case with the movies Driving Miss Daisy and Thelma and Louise , telling the ecstatic crowd : “It’s Hillary in a White Ford Bronco. She’s got Huma driving and they’re headed for the Mexican border. I have a name for the future TV movie. It’s called Driving Miss Hillary. And the ending, if we all get our wish, is like Thelma and Louise!” Finally, Root ended his echo of Nuremberg by declaring: “I will give you my country when you pry it from my cold dead hands.” When I listen to Wayne Allyn Root (or any of the other fanatical Trumpkins), the movie that comes to mind for me is One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Featured Image Via Right Wing Watch About Andrew Bradford Andrew Bradford is a single father who lives in Atlanta. A member of the Christian Left, he has worked in the fields of academia, journalism, and political consulting. His passions are art, music, food, and literature. He believes in equal rights and justice for all. To see what else he likes to write about, check out his blog at Deepleftfield.info. Connect

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Scrabble Spells Doom for the Racial Hypothesis of Intelligence

11 27 Top three nations with elite Scrabble players on the WESPA ratings list. Nigeria is on top, despite constant travel visa rejections to play in world tournaments. Besides Nigeria, countries like Kenya, Ghana and Uganda also contribute players to the world top 100. An even more astonishing picture of African performance unfolds when we look beyond the English-speaking African countries. Scrabble in French? In 2015, Nigel Richards, an English-speaking professional Scrabble player from New Zealand, confirmed his reputation as perhaps the greatest Scrabble player in history by winning the French World Scrabble Championship, after memorizing the French dictionary in nine weeks. His goal in 2015 was apparently to hold both the English and French world championships simultaneously. He was robbed of his full glory by the Nigerian Wellington Jighere in the English version, but managed to pull off a more phenomenal victory in the language he does not speak! Nigel Richards is said to have an authentic photographic memory . What caught my eye in all the frenzied media reports was the name of the person Richards defeated in the finals (I was fully expecting a French name): Schelick Rekawe. An African (from Gabon) had reached the finals of the French world championships? How? When I looked into the history of the French Scrabble World Championships, I was stunned to find that Francophone African countries have been even more dominant in French Scrabble, and over a longer period, than Nigerians have become in English Scrabble, despite a very active expert Scrabble club culture in France and other native French-speaking countries. The full list of the top players in the 2015 French Scrabble championship that Richards won gives a clear picture of this African dominance: 2015 French World Championships final standings. Source: French Wikipedia A look at Gabon’s demographics makes the Scrabble achievement of Gabon impossible to explain under the present racial hypothesis. Gabon has a population of 1.7 million and a reported national IQ of 64. If the world champion needs an IQ of just 140 (it should probably be higher than that, given the level of gender disparity at the very top), then there is statistically no one in Gabon who should ever come anywhere close to the world championship. Three made it to the top 10 in 2015. Note that the strongest version of the genetic hypothesis is contradicted even before you do the math: the very existence of such high interest in a mathematical game can not be predicted from a genetic theory that claims heritability of (cognitive or other) human interests, if it is indeed true that Africans have the lowest genetic endowment in mathematical (or even verbal) ability. Is French Scrabble perhaps less mathematical than English Scrabble? Not at all. The very fact that someone could successfully cross from English Scrabble to French Scrabble (Nigel Richards) should indicate that it requires similar cognitive skills. But I still looked at some profiles of the top French Scrabble players in Europe just to make sure, and found clear signs to confirm this. For example, the French Wikipedia entry on France’s best player (the last French player to keep the French World Championship from Africans, and the only one to have won it twice) says: Christian Coustillas, professeur agrégé et génie des mathématiques, est un joueur français de Scrabble. I do not know any French, but I can bet that there is the word ‘mathematics’ somewhere in there and perhaps even an academic career in it! In 2016, Nigel Richards returned to defend his World Championship title and this time the Africans vowed to keep the crown from him. Like the year before Richards stole the French championship, the two finalists in 2016 were both Africans again; Richards was fourth, behind three Africans. The French math professor and former world champion, Christian Coustillas, could not make it to the top ten as more Africans dominated the chart: 2016 French World Championships final standings. 8 /10 positions are African. Source: French Wikipedia Notice that the names of the 2016 top Gabonese players are different from the ones in 2015, which defies the probability projections from their population and national IQ even further. Senegal (population 13 million, IQ 76), which has probably had the most success at the world championships historically, achieved this with a literacy rate of only 40%! Something Special about Scrabble for Africans Perhaps? The man who won the French World Scrabble championship in 2014, Julien Affaton from Benin, also happens to be a top master draughts (checkers) player in his country. This should immediately suggest that whatever he is using to win his Scrabble games probably has something in common with what is needed to be a master in checkers, because it is highly improbable to be that exceptional in two different areas that require unrelated skills. The question can then be asked: if this is true, then why aren’t Africans also very good in checkers at the world level, just as they are with Scrabble? Isn’t checkers an even more natural field for Africans since it is cheaper to make a checkers set? Meet Baba Sy. Baba Sy breaking world record for simultaneous draughts play. Back in 1960, a draughts expert from France was visiting the French colony of Senegal when he decided to watch some of the street games in poor communities after the French settlers had introduced the game to the black natives. He could not believe the accuracy and speed of their calculations, despite their lack of exposure to theory, and he decided to expose one of the stronger players to his homeland of France where there was a strong checkers club culture among the mathematically-inclined elites. To the utter shock of everyone in France, the young Senegalese player, Baba Sy, defeated every single expert in France and instantly achieved national fame by becoming the national champion of France! France had once been the most dominant nation in the world of international draughts, before the Netherlands (briefly) and then the Soviet Union (permanently) took this honor from them through the latter’s state-sponsored program of monetarily professionalizing chess and checkers careers. With the phenomenal rise of Baba Sy, the French thought they had the chance of recapturing the World Championship from the Soviets by using this brilliant talent from one of their colonies. Baba Sy participated in the 1960 World Championship tournament and shocked the Soviets by coming second in the world, in a variant of draughts he had just been introduced to that was different from his Senegalese one. Sy was not convinced that there was a human who was better than him at any form of checkers, so he decided to challenge the world champion in a more decisive one-on-one World Championship match instead of an open tournament of cumulative points against different players. But by the time this match was supposed to happen, Baba Sy had gained enough mastery of this standard variant to convincingly demolish the best of the Soviets, including their reigning champion and best match play genius at the time, Iser Kuperman. This made the Soviet government reluctant to allow the official World Championship match to take place, apparently for fear of the international embarrassment this title loss would cause, given their heavy investment in the game (they had the same fears over Bobby Fischer in chess). On the day of the match, the Soviet champion simply did not show up, and thus began a long contentious diplomatic standoff between the governments of the Soviet Union and Senegal, as the world of international draughts hotly debated who the rightful champion of the world was for many years. It was only fully resolved posthumously for Baba Sy. List of Draughts World Champions. Source: Wikipedia Again, a person like Sy should not exist outside the realm of science fiction if the racial hypothesis is correct. In 1960, Senegal’s population was 3 million, and IQ 76. The population of France was 47 million, and the population of Russia was 120 million, with national IQs of 98 and 97, respectively. It should be impossible for a Senegalese champion to beat just the high school champions of either France or the Soviet Union. The reason we have never seen a child become world champion in checkers or Scrabble (or anything) is probably because their brains are not fully developed (brain development continues to 25 years of age); and yet the racial hypothesis tells us that the fully developed African brains are on average the mental age equivalent of the white 12 year olds. So why do (the smartest of) Africans produce world champion level players and the smartest of the white 12 year olds (or even the much more “superior” 18/19 year olds) never do? Baba Sy was not some freakish anomaly in African draughts. Former African colonies of France have continued to offer the biggest challenge to Russia’s traditional dominance of the game, even though, like Scrabble players, most of them still have little access to international tournaments to raise their ratings (the fact that many of them come from lower income communities even by African standards makes it harder for them to obtain travel visas.) In 2015, Jean Marc Ndjofang , a Cameroonian player who has migrated to Europe, managed to qualify as the challenger to the Russian world champion (by defeating everyone else, including other Russians), and only came short of ending the iron grip of the Russians on the world title through a tie-break, as the two failed to beat each other after seven games of normal classical match play. The 2015 World Champion, Alexander Georgiev, in a heated tournament game against the Vice-World Champion, Jean Ndjofang. American Checkers. Americans play a different variant of draughts called English checkers or American checkers; the different variants mainly differ on the number of squares on the board. Although the game is mostly popular with children in the US, there is a whole world of professional checkers players who also have a clear endowment in mathematical ability. Thus, the most famous world champion in the history of American checkers was a distinguished math professor, Marion Tinsley . (There are now two variants of Anglo-American checkers: the normal Go-As-You-Play or GAYP and one called 3-move, in which the first three moves are pre-chosen, to prevent memorized opening plays that increase probabilities of draws). After Tinsley’s indomitable reign, the most dominant English-checkers player in the world became the appropriately named Ron King, who won American championships and 12 world championships. At the height of his dominance, Ron King faced the biggest challenge of his career from an unknown player named Lubabalo Kondlo. King was able to retain the title after a grueling match that was later made into a documentary . Kondlo happens to be a black man from a very poor area in South Africa. Ron King is also black, from Barbados, and he is known as the Muhammad Ali of checkers for his “trash talking.” At the height of his career, King entered the Guinness Book of World Records for playing an unbelievable 350 simultaneous games and winning them all! Ron King successfully defended his World Championship against strong Russian players who had shifted to the Anglo-Saxon checkers, including Alexander Moiseyev , a grandmaster in three variants of the game. Moiseyev, a computer programmer, finally snatched the crown from King in the 3-move variant in 2003. Incredibly, Ron King held on to the World Championship of the GAYP variant until 2014, when he forfeited it to an Italian grandmaster, Sergio Scarpetta , when he failed to show up for the last four games of the World Championship match. South Africa’s Kondlo has continued his quest for the world title; he qualified again to play the World Championship match in 2015 in 3-move checkers (after defeating a strong field including Scarpetta), but lost the match to the world champion, Italian Michele Borghetti. Canadian Checkers. Canada also has its variant of checkers. The 2015 Canadian Champion is a Senegalese immigrant, Souleymane Keita. He defended his title against (a-Russian-immigrant-sounding name) Vladimir Lubarsky. In summary, a player from sub-Saharan Africa was the finalist or world champion of 2015, in International Draughts, American checkers, Canadian checkers, English Scrabble and French Scrabble. Why aren’t Africans also dominant in chess? The simple reason seems to be that, unlike Scrabble and Checkers, master level chess requires access to a very large body of ever-growing literature in chess theory (even ignoring the difficulty of making homemade chess pieces); it’s no longer possible to teach yourself grand master level chess, without memorizing these long chess openings. Africans do not have this access to chess materials (which now includes computer programs) for the same reason that they have no access to mathematics text books and other educational materials in schools or public (I would be surprised if even 1 percent of Africans have ever seen the word “library” on a building anywhere; they simply don’t exist). Chess has become more resource-demanding than any school subject. Fischer himself decried the increasingly heavy reliance of top-level chess on familiarity with professionally analyzed theoretical opening lines that the Soviet chess machine engendered (Fischer had to learn Russian just to keep up with the countless Russian opening analyses), and he ultimately invented a variant of chess (called Fischer Random chess) that basically rearranges the pieces at the start of a game. But standard chess continues to be the most popular in the world and Africans continue facing a training deficit for as long as there are no books there. Thus when the New York Times reported on the incredible Grandmaster achievement of an amateur Zambian chess player in 2007, their article was revealingly titled “Zambian with Little Training Stands Poised to Make History.” (By contrast, re women in chess, a 1992 book about the best chess playing female trio in history, was skeptically titled “The Polgar Sisters: Genius or Training? ”). The resource disadvantage of Africa in chess still does not mean, as some racial hypothesis bloggers seem to constantly suggest, that African chess teams relatively perform at a level that “confirms” their low national IQ scores. On the contrary, Zambia has a stronger national chess team than either Japan or South Korea, for example. Thus, Zambia (population 15 million, national IQ 78) quite easily defeated South Korea (population 50 million, national IQ 106) last time they met at the Chess Olympiads, with the former not even featuring its grandmaster. (China, on the other hand, is now an East Asian chess powerhouse, although it should be mentioned that they achieved this through a semi-Soviet-style professionalization program dubbed “ Big Dragon Project ”, initiated by an Asian billionaire in collaboration with Chinese officials, with the explicit aim of raising East Asian chess performance). South Africa’s first chess grandmaster, Kenny Solomon. Even within some historically multiracial countries, you can find some hints of anomalies to the racial hypothesis: South Africa has produced only one chess grandmaster in its history, and he happens to come from the black community. The fact that the black population of South Africa is larger shouldn’t really matter; after all, the top swimmers in South Africa are all white (for likely genetic reasons), and the fastest runners in white majority multiracial societies are black. What about American blacks? The vast majority of observations that have led to the conclusions of the racial hypothesis are based on the intellectual performance of blacks in America, where a historical IQ gap of one standard deviation seems to be intractable. Indeed the game of expert Scrabble itself appears to confirm the ethnic conclusions of Jensen et al within America because black Americans perform (on Scrabble) exactly as predicted by IQ data. Top black American experts generally perform lower than white American women at the top expert level. The best male native black American Scrabble player, Marlon Hill, has apparently made it his open mission to beat whites at Scrabble, a story that has not escaped Rush Limbaugh ‘s amusement. He has so far failed to convincingly establish his racial “superiority.” His rating does not appear on the top 1000 players of the world (WESPA) or even on the top 100 rated players in North America (NASPA). (By contrast, Marlon Hill’s old training partner , Sammy Okosagah, a Nigerian immigrant, has been ranked as high as number one in North America at his peak in 2004, and was one of the highest performing American duo, with David Weigand, at the 2013 World Championships when he came third in the world.) Lisa Odom, the highest ranked native Black American player. Quite surprisingly, there are some signs that the well-known gender reversal of intelligence that has been observed in black Americans may be slightly confirmed in Scrabble. A female black expert, Lisa Odom, does not appear on the recent international WESPA ratings list (although she has qualified in the past to play at the world championships) but she appears on the North American top 100 NASPA list . She is presently 59 th on that list (it changes frequently), which makes her not only the highest ranked native black American, but also one of the highest ranked women of any race in North America. (Incidentally, the third highest ranked player on the entire North American list at the time of this writing is a Kenyan immigrant, Patrick Gitonga Nderitu, who is ranked just above the Stanford wonderkid, Mack Meller.) A Jewish Rule? One simple informal test of the “g-loadedness” or cognitive intensity of any intellectual field is the presence of Jewish over-representation at the very top of the game, so to speak. This rule seems to work for the game of Scrabble. One of the highest rated Scrabble players in the world, second only to the great Nigel Richards in official rating at the time of this writing, is an Australian player named David Eldar. Eldar attended a special school called King David High School, whose Wikipedia description sounds like it was exclusively formed to serve the Australian Jewish community. Ashkenazi Jews are only 0.5% of that country. Although Eldar has not yet won the world championship, the odds are highly in his favor, as the second highest rated player in the world. Someone who has won the World Championship is Joel Sherman, who is one of only three Americans to have held the coveted title. Even without digging further for more Jews on the long list of highly rated players in North America, these examples are already sufficient to establish Jewish statistical over-representation on Scrabble super-achievement. And we have a strong reason to believe that there are even more. In a 2005 interview where he was asked to confirm his Jewish roots after he appeared on a list of Jewish sports figures, Sherman disclosed: … Several other North American Scrabble ® Champs have been Jewish and they’re not listed, presumably because the Wikipedia contributor who compiled that list found my Jewishness mentioned in “Word Freak” and the same info is not readily available about them. I won’t “out” them because I don’t know how they would feel to share that listing as well. My own feeling is ambivalent: it’s nice to be noted, but I’d rather my born religion was not the criterion for my inclusion, as I have been an atheist since even before my Bar Mitzvah… Seven years before Sherman’s statement, a 1998 New York Times report on computers playing Scrabble against human experts, contained a revealing sentence in the long article: “The leading Scrabble players, many of whom are Jewish, …” The over-representation of Ashkenazi Jews at the top of such cognitively demanding games might also put in doubt any suggestions of steep declines in real Jewish IQ in the 20 th century. The game of checkers does not escape this Jewish rule (no pun intended). I found that the greatest checkers match player in the Soviet Union at the height of Soviet sponsorship of the game, the man the Soviets were apparently shielding from Senegal’s Baba Sy, Iser Kuperman, was Jewish . This means that the two Russians who held the World Championship in chess and checkers at this time of Soviet dominance were both Jewish (the great Mikhail Botvinik was the chess world champion at this time in the early 1960s). It is said that this ambitious Soviet promotion and glorification of chess and checkers was originally instituted by Stalin to keep the most intelligent elites of his country, especially the Jews, occupied with something that would keep them from meddling in politics (in more recent years, Gary Kasparov, an Ashkenazi Jew, has indeed become quite troublesome for the Russian government after retiring from chess). It was of course also later used for propaganda purposes to convey the intellectual “superiority” of the Soviet system internally and internationally. Jewish brilliance has not left the world of checkers to this day. Alexander Moiseyev, the Russian who ended the World Championship reign (in 3-move American checkers) of the Barbadian Ron King, is of Jewish descent . (The 2015 finalist against Senegalese Souleymane Keita in Canadian checkers, Vladimir Lubarsky, is also almost certainly Jewish .) The bottom line is that if the cognitive hierarchy under the racial hypothesis was true, there should be no single popular intellectual activity in the world in which Africans and Ashkenazi Jews are both over-represented at the top (just as there is no single world athletic activity requiring high speed, in which the slowest populations and the fastest populations are both over-represented at the top). Scrabble and Checkers are in violation of that logical axiom. Jewish over-representation at the top of such games (checkers, scrabble, chess, etc) also puts in doubt any conclusions that the male advantage over females has to do specifically with visuospatial abilities, as Jews are not exceptional in that regard. It would seem that the advantage has to just do with general intelligence. No East Asians in Scrabble? National School Scrabble championships, source: Wikipedia East Asians have the reputation of being good at math in school and college, but their dominance does not extend to the highest award in math (the Field’s Medal), so it is not an anomaly for Scrabble that they are not over-represented at the world championships (especially those born in English-speaking nations). The question still is: why aren’t they good at Scrabble in school, since they are so conspicuously good in math at that stage? Does their failure at this stage pose a problem for Scrabble as a math game? Actually, they do quite as well at Scrabble as they do in school mathematics. It appears that there has been an East Asian name among the winners of the highly competitive National School Scrabble Championships in four of the last six years! (They are only 6% of the US population). Notice that only one female name has appeared (Aune Mitchell, 2007) even at this stage. I did not investigate the Jewishness of the other names, but it would not be surprising if there were a few. First team to win National Scrabble School Championship twice, Andy Hoang and Erik Salgado SAT math scores by gender and ethnicity in 2015. Source: AEI Discussion “For expert players, the game requires the simultaneous interplay of verbal, visuospatial, and mathematical abilities under speeded conditions. There are no other games that require the simultaneous, rapid use of all of these abilities.” Halpern and Wai, The World of Competitive Scrabble , Psychology Today. Spearman’s hypothesis , an idea used by Arthur Jensen to demonstrate the biological nature of the black-white performance gap, predicts that the gap should expand the more you use a test that relies on more raw brain power or ‘g’. Scrabble involves much more mental manipulations than the simpler well-known “WordSum” Vocabulary test and the latter shows a wide gap between blacks and whites (in America). This gap does indeed appear to grow even further when you replace WordSum test with Scrabble, but only when you limit “black” to native black Americans. The gap appears to reduce and even reverse when you introduce black Africans, which is an anomaly for the racial hypothesis. The fact that we are talking about the most elite players should actually make it even more impossible for this to happen since the black-white gap should be even more conspicuous (in favor of whites) at higher ends of cognitive performance. In the same vein, the game of draughts (especially its speeded up form, called “blitz draughts”) is much more g-loaded than a simple “ Reaction Time ” test that is used by cognitive psychologists to test natural brain power differences by comparing how long it takes one to react to certain simple stimuli. Blitz draughts does not only demand your quick reaction to the move of your opponent, it includes the added mental challenge of calculating your reaction move based on assessing a constantly changing position. Besides playing the World Championship match in the slow classical draughts, an African player reached the top two slots of the super-elite world championships in blitz draughts for both 2015 and 2016 . If Africans are doing well on these games because of some special environmental reason, then that contradicts the genetic racial hypothesis. If Africans in Africa are outperforming others due to some environmental reason, then black American performance on Scrabble can also be raised by environmental methods; if black American Scrabble performance can be raised to equal whites, then black American math performance can also be raised by environmental intervention. If it can’t, then the fallacy of the hereditarian position has been to assume that native black Americans are cognitively representative of blacks everywhere. The global racial hypothesis is therefore not just contradicted by these findings, it is logically refuted . Under this hypothesis, there should not be even one single cognitive field where the top blacks are equal or more over-represented than the top whites, especially when white participation in such fields is elite enough to result in a wide gender performance gap in favor of males even with relatively high numbers of female participants. The additional presence of Jewish over-representation at the top of a field should only reinforce the impossibility of black dominance or equality under that hypothesis. You have the opposite empirical result in Scrabble and checkers since you get increasing African over-representation with rising cognitive selectivity, suggesting a reversal of the gap, if anything. The falsifiable part of the racial hypothesis is duly falsified. REFERENCES Downie, J. (2011). Why are Most Scrabble Champions Male? New Republic Fatsis, S. (2002). Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players. Penguin. Halpern, D., Wai, J. (2007) The World of Competitive Scrabble: Novice and Expert Differences in Visuospatial and Verbal Abilities . Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied 2007, vol.13 no.2 79-94 Lynn, Richard (1994). “Sex differences in intelligence and brain size: A paradox resolved”. Personality and Individual Differences . 17 (2): 257–71 Pinker, S. (2009). The sexual paradox: Men, women and the real gender gap . Simon and Schuster.

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