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Explosive Assange/Pilger Interview on US Election: Expect Riots if Hillary Wins

Other Writers RT : “Whistleblower Julian Assange has given one of his most incendiary interviews ever in a John Pilger Special [released late yesterday] courtesy of Dartmouth Films. Here he summarizes what can be gleaned from the tens of thousands of Clinton emails leaked by WikiLeaks this year.” LD : Despite the enormous populist support for Trump and the extraordinary loathing in which Hillary Clinton is held by millions of American, Assange says that “Trump cannot be allowed to win.” Trump has already indicated that he will not recognize the result of the election if he loses, given the enormous enthusiasm he has generated during his speeches, compared to the relatively tepid and anaemic response evoked by Hillary Clinton on similar occasions. Recent news reports reveal that “election related violence is increasing and Right-wing armed militia groups are even preparing for unrest if Mrs Clinton ‘steals’ the election, as they fear will happen.” If Hillary Clinton wins this election, as Assange predicts, we can expect riots to erupt all across America. Violent insurrection, in the circumstances of a rigged election, would appear to be more than justified. Hillary Clinton clearly belongs behind bars, not in the White House. [LD] John Pilger ( left ) conducted the 25-minute interview at the Ecuadorian Embassy where Assange has been trapped since 2012 for fear of extradition to the US. Here is a transcript of the interview followed by the YouTube interview itself. THE SECRET WORLD OF THE US ELECTION John Pilger: What’s the significance of the FBI’s intervention in these last days of the U.S. election campaign, in the case against Hillary Clinton? Julian Assange: If you look at the history of the FBI, it has become effectively America’s political police. The FBI demonstrated this by taking down the former head of the CIA General David Petraeus over classified information given to his mistress. Almost no-one is untouchable. The FBI is always trying to demonstrate that no-one can resist us. But Hillary Clinton very conspicuously resisted the FBI’s investigation, so there’s anger within the FBI because it made the FBI look weak. We’ve published about 33,000 of Clinton’s emails when she was Secretary of State. They come from a batch of just over 60,000 emails, [of which] Clinton has kept about half — 30,000 — to herself, and we’ve published about half. Then there are the Podesta emails we’ve been publishing. John Podesta is Hillary Clinton’s primary campaign manager, so there’s a thread that runs through all these emails; there are quite a lot of pay-for-play, as they call it, giving access in exchange for money to states, individuals and corporations. These emails are combined with the cover up of the Hillary Clinton emails when she was Secretary of State, which has led to an environment where the pressure on the FBI increases. ‘Russian government not the source of Clinton leaks’ PILGER : The Clinton campaign has said that Russia is behind all of this, that Russia has manipulated the campaign and is the source for WikiLeaks and its emails. ASSANGE : The Clinton camp has been able to project that kind of neo-McCarthy hysteria: that Russia is responsible for everything. Hilary Clinton stated multiple times, falsely, that seventeen U.S. intelligence agencies had assessed that Russia was the source of our publications. That is false; we can say that the Russian government is not the source. ‘Saudi Arabia & Qatar funding ISIS and Clinton’ PILGER : The emails that give evidence of access for money and how Hillary Clinton herself benefited from this and how she is benefitting politically, are quite extraordinary. I’m thinking of when the Qatari representative was given five minutes with Bill Clinton for a million dollar cheque. ASSANGE : And twelve million dollars from Morocco … PILGER : Twelve million from Morocco, yeah. ASSANGE : For Hillary Clinton to attend a party. PILGER : In terms of the foreign policy of the United States, that’s where the emails are most revealing, where they show the direct connection between Hillary Clinton and the foundation of jihadism, of ISIL, in the Middle East. Can you talk about how the emails demonstrate the connection between those who are meant to be fighting the jihadists of ISIL, are actually those who have helped create it. ASSANGE : There’s an early 2014 email from Hillary Clinton, not so long after she left the State Department, to her campaign manager John Podesta that states ISIL is funded by the governments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Now this is the most significant email in the whole collection, and perhaps because Saudi and Qatari money is spread all over the Clinton Foundation. Even the U.S. government agrees that some Saudi figures have been supporting ISIL, or ISIS. But the dodge has always been that, well it’s just some rogue Princes, using their cut of the oil money to do whatever they like, but actually the government disapproves. But that email says that no, it is the governments of Saudi and Qatar that have been funding ISIS. PILGER : The Saudis, the Qataris, the Moroccans, the Bahrainis, particularly the Saudis and the Qataris, are giving all this money to the Clinton Foundation while Hilary Clinton is Secretary of State and the State Department is approving massive arms sales, particularly to Saudi Arabia. ASSANGE : Under Hillary Clinton, the world’s largest ever arms deal was made with Saudi Arabia, worth more than $80 billion. In fact, during her tenure as Secretary of State, total arms exports from the United States in terms of the dollar value, doubled. PILGER : Of course the consequence of that is that the notorious terrorist group called ISIl or ISIS is created largely with money from the very people who are giving money to the Clinton Foundation. ASSANGE : Yes. PILGER : That’s extraordinary. ‘Clinton has been eaten alive by her ambition’ ASSANGE : I actually feel quite sorry for Hillary Clinton as a person because I see someone who is eaten alive by their ambitions, tormented literally to the point where they become sick; they faint as a result of the reaction to their ambitions. She represents a whole network of people and a network of relationships with particular states. The question is how does Hilary Clinton fit in this broader network? She’s a centralising cog. You’ve got a lot of different gears in operation from the big banks like Goldman Sachs and major elements of Wall Street, and Intelligence and people in the State Department and the Saudis. She’s the centraliser that inter-connects all these different cogs. She’s the smooth central representation of all that, and ‘all that’ is more or less what is in power now in the United States. It’s what we call the establishment or the DC consensus. One of the more significant Podesta emails that we released was about how the Obama cabinet was formed and how half the Obama cabinet was basically nominated by a representative from City Bank. This is quite amazing. PILGER : Didn’t Citybank supply a list… ? ASSANGE : Yes. PILGER : Which turned out to be most of the Obama cabinet? ASSANGE : Yes. PILGER : So Wall Street decides the cabinet of the President of the United States? ASSANGE : If you were following the Obama campaign back then, closely, you could see it had become very close to banking interests. So I think you can’t properly understand Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy without understanding Saudi Arabia. The connections with Saudi Arabia are so intimate. ‘Libya is Hillary Clinton’s war’ PILGER : Why was she so demonstrably enthusiastic about the destruction of Libya? Can you talk a little about just what the emails have told us – told you – about what happened there? Because Libya is such a source for so much of the mayhem now in Syria: the ISIL, jihadism, and so on. And it was almost Hillary Clinton’s invasion. What do the emails tell us about that? ASSANGE : Libya, more than anyone else’s war, was Hillary Clinton’s war. Barak Obama initially opposed it. Who was the person championing it? Hillary Clinton. That’s documented throughout her emails. She had put her favoured agent, Sidney Blumenthal, on to that; there’s more than 1700 emails out of the thirty three thousand Hillary Clinton emails that we’ve published, just about Libya. It’s not that Libya has cheap oil. She perceived the removal of Gaddafi and the overthrow of the Libyan state — something that she would use in her run-up to the general election for President. So in late 2011 there is an internal document called the Libya Tick Tock that was produced for Hillary Clinton, and it’s the chronological description of how she was the central figure in the destruction of the Libyan state, which resulted in around 40,000 deaths within Libya; jihadists moved in, ISIS moved in, leading to the European refugee and migrant crisis. Not only did you have people fleeing Libya, people fleeing Syria, the destabilisation of other African countries as a result of arms flows, but the Libyan state itself err was no longer able to control the movement of people through it. Libya faces along to the Mediterranean and had been effectively the cork in the bottle of Africa. So all problems, economic problems and civil war in Africa — previously people fleeing those problems didn’t end up in Europe because Libya policed the Mediterranean. That was said explicitly at the time, back in early 2011 by Gaddafi: ‘What do these Europeans think they’re doing, trying to bomb and destroy the Libyan State? There’s going to be floods of migrants out of Africa and jihadists into Europe, and this is exactly what happened. ‘Trump won’t be permitted to win’ PILGER : You get complaints from people saying, ‘What is WikiLeaks doing? Are they trying to put Trump in the White House?’ ASSANGE : My answer is that Trump would not be permitted to win. Why do I say that? Because he’s had every establishment off side; Trump doesn’t have one establishment, maybe with the exception of the Evangelicals, if you can call them an establishment, but banks, intelligence agencies, arms companies… big foreign money … are all united behind Hillary Clinton, and the media as well, media owners and even journalists themselves. PILGER : There is the accusation that WikiLeaks is in league with the Russians. Some people say, ‘Well, why doesn’t WikiLeaks investigate and publish emails on Russia?’ ASSANGE : We have published about 800,000 documents of various kinds that relate to Russia. Most of those are critical; and a great many books have come out of our publications about Russia, most of which are critical. Our Russia documents have gone on to be used in quite a number of court cases: refugee cases of people fleeing some kind of claimed political persecution in Russia, which they use our documents to back up. PILGER : Do you yourself take a view of the U.S. election? Do you have a preference for Clinton or Trump? ASSANGE : Let’s talk about Donald Trump. What does he represent in the American mind and in the European mind? He represents American white trash, which Hillary Clinton called ‘deplorable and irredeemable’. It means from an establishment or educated cosmopolitan, urbane perspective, these people are like the red necks, and you can never deal with them. Because he so clearly — through his words and actions and the type of people that turn up at his rallies — represents people who are not the middle, not the upper middle educated class, there is a fear of seeming to be associated in any way with them, a social fear that lowers the class status of anyone who can be accused of somehow assisting Trump in any way, including any criticism of Hillary Clinton. If you look at how the middle class gains its economic and social power, that makes absolute sense. ‘US attempting to squeeze WikiLeaks through my refugee status’ PILGER : I’d like to talk about Ecuador, the small country that has given you refuge and political asylum in this embassy in London. Now Ecuador has cut off the internet from here where we’re doing this interview, in the Embassy, for the clearly obvious reason that they are concerned about appearing to intervene in the U.S. election campaign. Can you talk about why they would take that action and your own views on Ecuador’s support for you? ASSANGE : Let’s let go back four years. I made an asylum application to Ecuador in this embassy, because of the U.S. extradition case, and the result was that after a month, I was successful in my asylum application. The embassy since then has been surrounded by police: quite an expensive police operation which the British government admits to spending more than £12.6 million. They admitted that over a year ago. Now there’s undercover police and there are robot surveillance cameras of various kinds — so that there has been quite a serious conflict right here in the heart of London between Ecuador, a country of sixteen million people, and the United Kingdom, and the Americans who have been helping on the side. So that was a brave and principled thing for Ecuador to do. Now we have the U.S. election campaign, the Ecuadorian election is in February next year, and you have the White House feeling the political heat as a result of the true information that we have been publishing. WikiLeaks does not publish from the jurisdiction of Ecuador, from this embassy or in the territory of Ecuador; we publish from France, we publish from, from Germany, we publish from The Netherlands and from a number of other countries, so that the attempted squeeze on WikiLeaks is through my refugee status; and this is, this is really intolerable. It means that [they] are trying to get at a publishing organisation; they try and prevent it from publishing true information that is of intense interest to the American people and others about an election. PILGER : Tell us what would happen if you walked out of this embassy. ASSANGE : I would be immediately arrested by the British police and I would then be extradited either immediately to the United States or to Sweden. In Sweden I am not charged, I have already been previously cleared by the Senior Stockholm Prosecutor Eva Finne. We were not certain exactly what would happen there, but then we know that the Swedish government has refused to say that they will not extradite me to the United States we know they have extradited 100 per cent of people whom the U.S. has requested since at least 2000. So over the last fifteen years, every single person the U.S. has tried to extradite from Sweden has been extradited, and they refuse to provide a guarantee [that won’t happen]. PILGER : People often ask me how you cope with the isolation in here. ASSANGE : Look, one of the best attributes of human beings is that they’re adaptable; one of the worst attributes of human beings is they are adaptable. They adapt and start to tolerate abuses, they adapt to being involved themselves in abuses, they adapt to adversity and they continue on. So in my situation, frankly, I’m a bit institutionalised — this [the embassy] is the world … it’s visually the world for me. PILGER : It’s the world without sunlight, for one thing, isn’t it? ASSANGE : It’s the world without sunlight, but I haven’t seen sunlight in so long, I don’t remember it. PILGER : Yes. ASSANGE : So , yes, you adapt. The one real irritant is that my young children — they also adapt. They adapt to being without their father. That’s a hard, hard adaption which they didn’t ask for. PILGER : Do you worry about them? ASSANGE : Yes, I worry about them; I worry about their mother. ‘I am innocent and in arbitrary detention’ PILGER : Some people would say, ‘Well, why don’t you end it and simply walk out the door and allow yourself to be extradited to Sweden?’ ASSANGE : The U.N. [the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention] has looked into this whole situation. They spent eighteen months in formal, adversarial litigation. So it’s me and the U.N. verses Sweden and the U.K. Who’s right? The U.N. made a conclusion that I am being arbitrarily detained illegally, deprived of my freedom and that what has occurred has not occurred within the laws that the United Kingdom and Sweden, and that those countries must obey. It is an illegal abuse. It is the United Nations formally asking, ‘What’s going on here? What is your legal explanation for this? Assange says that you should recognise his asylum.’ And here is. Sweden formally writing back to the United Nations to say, ‘No, we’re not going to recognise the UN ruling, so leaving open their ability to extradite. I just find it absolutely amazing that the narrative about this situation is not put out publically in the press, because it doesn’t suit the Western establishment narrative — that yes, the West has political prisoners, it’s a reality, it’s not just me, there’s a bunch of other people as well. The West has political prisoners. Of course, no state accepts that it should call the people it is imprisoning or detaining for political reasons, political prisoners. They don’t call them political prisoners in China, they don’t call them political prisoners in Azerbaijan and they don’t call them political prisoners in the United States, U.K. or Sweden; it is absolutely intolerable to have that kind of self-perception. ASSANGE : Here we have a case, the Swedish case, where I have never been charged with a crime, where I have already been cleared by the Stockholm prosecutor and found to be innocent, where the woman herself said that the police made it up, where the United Nations formally said the whole thing is illegal, where the State of Ecuador also investigated and found that I should be given asylum. Those are the facts, but what is the rhetoric? PILGER : Yes, it’s different. ASSANGE : The rhetoric is pretending, constantly pretending that I have been charged with a crime, and never mentioning that I have been already previously cleared, never mentioning that the woman herself says that the police made it up. The rhetoric is trying to avoid the truth that the U.N. formally found that the whole thing is illegal, never even mentioning that Ecuador made a formal assessment through its formal processes and found that yes, I am subject to persecution by the United States.

1real

First lady Melania plays tourist as Trump departs Beijing

BEIJING (Reuters) - As U.S. President Donald Trump left Beijing on Friday for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam, first lady Melania stayed behind to play tourist, viewing pandas at a zoo and visiting the Great Wall of China. At the Beijing Zoo, the 47-year-old former model fed a giant panda named Gu Gu and learned about his nutrition and training. She greeted a group of school children waving miniature Chinese and American flags, handing out stuffed toy eagles after watching the children sing a Chinese folk song at the panda enclosure. Thank you very much, she said. Melania then signed a panda print, writing: Thank you to the Beijing Zoo! Wonderful to meet Gu Gu! Melania Trump . Later in the afternoon, Melania walked along part of the Mutianyu section of the more than 20,000-km (12,400-mile) long Great Wall, a UNESCO World Heritage Site where China frequently takes visiting heads of state and their spouses. As with previous first ladies, Melania has used her platform to champion public causes, such as the prevention of childhood bullying and combating the opioid epidemic in the United States. Playing a prominent supporting role on the president s multi-leg Asia visit, she won praise on Chinese social media, with comparisons to China s glamorous first lady, Peng Liyuan, and comments on her apparent ease in navigating the ancient cobblestones of the Forbidden City in super-high stilettos upon arrival in Beijing on Wednesday. Accompanied by Peng, Melania watched a cultural performance, painted pandas and participated in a cooking class at a primary school on Thursday. Many on China s Twitter-like Weibo applauded Melania s grace and sense of style, as well as her cultural sensitivity. In China, she wore mostly austere coats and dark gowns from Dolce & Gabbana and Alexander McQueen, in contrast with her magenta Delpozo outfit and electric-blue heels upon landing in South Korea days before. But most in China said they remained bigger fans of their own first lady, often affectionately referred to online as Peng Mama, which roughly translates as Mother Peng. I still think Mama oozes more grace, while also exuding a motherly air! one Weibo poster said. Chinese social media sites are policed more heavily than normal during important political events, with negative or sensitive matter swiftly blocked or removed by internet censors. As Trump departed, he said on Twitter his wife s next stop would be Alaska, where she would greet our AMAZING troops . However, Trump s daughter and adviser Ivanka, who is very popular in China, did not accompany her father, to the disappointment of fans.

0fake

Trump Suffers Bizarre Memory Disorder: Says He Always Opposed Obamacare (VIDEO)

Trump Suffers Bizarre Memory Disorder: Says He Always Opposed Obamacare (VIDEO) By Karen Shiebler on October 26, 2016 Oh, ha,ha,ha! That silly old Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is so, so funny! He doesn’t seem to remember anything. He doesn’t remember what he has done , or what he has said , or what he believed or didn’t believe in the recent past. Now we have another example of Trump insisting that he said what he didn’t say, that he didn’t say what he said, and that he never believed what he said he believed. Confused? Yup. We are, too. Mediate reports that Trump’s memory about Obamacare is very murky, too. The candidate has been hitting the stump hard claiming that he will overturn the “disaster” of Obamacare. In fact, Trump has been claiming to anyone who will listen that he has always been against Obama’s health care plan. To listen to him, you would think that the man had taken to the airwaves as soon as the Affordable Care Act was passed, proclaiming that it would be the end of civilization as we know it. Except that he didn’t. After it was announced the other day that insurance premiums are going to be increasing this year, Trump pumped his fists and congratulated himself with his usual fervor. He crowed to Fox News: “I think it’s a disaster, and I’ve been saying it from the time before they even voted for it. I said this is a plan can’t work, it’s going to be a disaster.” He told Rush Limbaugh that : “Obamacare is a disaster. And you remember, I called that from before it was approved. I said, ‘This can’t work, because it’s just … the plan is no good. The concept is no good.’” Once again, though, the truth seems to have nothing in common with Trump’s faulty memory. In reality, back when the law was passed, Trump had not yet declared for the Presidency. He went on the air with Joy Behar on the day in 2010 when the law was passed. She asked him what he thought about the Act, and he replied that he had mixed feelings. Trump said that he hated to think about people being unable to get health care, but he worried about the cost to businesses. Then he commented on the President, saying: “It’s a pretty tough thing, but yeah, right now, he’s certainly looking like a hero.” So. Um. Mr. Trump’s memory is pretty damn shaky if you ask me. It seems that he is either trying to desperately to revise reality in order to put himself in a better light, or he is suffering from a very serious memory disorder. See if you can make any sense at all out of this mess . Featured image via YouTube Screengrab . About Karen Shiebler Karen is a retired elementary school teacher with many years of progressive activism behind her. She is the proud mother of three young adults who were all arrested with Occupy Wall Street. To see what she writes about in her spare time, check out her blog at "Empty Nest, Full Life" Connect

1real

Turkey orders detention of 100 former police officers in post-coup probe: Anadolu

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish authorities issued detention warrants on Saturday for 100 former police officers and have so far detained 63 of them, the state-run Anadolu news agency said, as part of a widening crackdown since last year s failed coup attempt. The suspects were believed to be users of ByLock, an encrypted messaging app which the government says was used by the network of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, accused by Ankara of orchestrating last July s abortive putsch. Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999, denies involvement. Anadolu said security forces were seeking the suspects in 19 provinces across the country. Since the abortive coup, more than 50,000 people have been jailed pending trial over alleged links to Gulen, while 150,000 people have been sacked or suspended from jobs in the military, public and private sectors. Rights groups and some of Turkey s Western allies have voiced concern about the crackdown, fearing the government is using the coup as a pretext to quash dissent. The government says only such a purge could neutralize the threat represented by Gulen s network, which it says deeply infiltrated institutions such as the army, schools and courts.

0fake

Pope says humanity will 'go down' if it does not address climate change

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE (Reuters) - Pope Francis said the recent spate of hurricanes should prompt people to understand that humanity will go down if it does not address climate change and history will judge those who deny the science on its causes. If we don t turn back, we will go down, Francis told reporters on Sunday on the plane returning from Colombia. Francis strongly backed the 2015 Paris agreement on reducing global warming, from which the United States withdrew this year. Francis spoke as hurricane Irma pounded central Florida as it carved through the state with high winds, storm surges and torrential rains that left millions without power, ripped roofs off homes and flooded city streets. Francis was asked about recent hurricanes, including Irma and Harvey, and if political leaders who do not want to work with other countries to stem global warming should be held morally responsible for future effects on the planet. You can see the effects of climate change and scientists have clearly said what path we have to follow, he said, referring to a consensus by scientists that global warming is caused by human activity such as fossil fuels. All of us have a responsibility, all of us, small or large, a moral responsibility. We have to take it seriously. We can t joke about it, he said. Each person has their own. Even politicians have their own. Ahead of the Paris summit in 2015, Francis wrote a major encyclical, or papal letter, on the care of the environment which backed the gradual elimination of fossil fuels to stem global warming. The accord, agreed on by nearly 200 countries, aims to cut emissions blamed for global warming. The United States committed to reducing its own by 26 to 28 percent, compared with 2005 levels, by 2025. Many world leaders criticized Trump for pulling out. If someone is doubtful that this is true, they should ask scientists. They are very clear. These are not opinions made on the fly. They are very clear. Then each person can decide and history will judge the decisions, he said. U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the Paris agreement shortly after visiting the Vatican in May. The Vatican had urged him to stay in the accord. A Vatican official said at the time that the U.S. move was a slap in the face for the pope and the Vatican.

0fake

Fox News is self-destructing: Islamophobia, Obama’s Reagan moment and Roger Ailes’s new humiliation

Convinced that last year’s midterm losses for Democrats signaled the effective end of Barack Obama’s presidency and a resounding victory for all things conservative and Republican (“On Fox News, there were smiles all around“), just three weeks into the new year Fox News is left wondering what happened to the “lamest” of the lame duck presidents. The one Fox News was going to mock for two more years while trying to tarnish his legacy. Rebounding to approval ratings not seen since 2013, instead of floundering, Obama is riding a crest of post-midterm successes, while Americans reward him for the country’s rebounding economy. The result: Obama’s the one quietly circling the victory track. “You can hardly tell from our NBC/WSJ poll that the Republican Party was the big winner from the midterm elections just two months ago,” noted NBC’s Chuck Todd, Mark Murray and Carrie Dann this week. “Somehow, Obama and the Democrats stole the Republicans’ post-election honeymoon.” If that didn’t sting badly enough, Fox continues to wrestle with the unfolding crisis over the network’s demonstrably false and stunning claim that some parts of Europe, including in France as well as Britain’s second largest city, Birmingham, have become Islamic and are “no-go zones” for non-Muslims, including for British law enforcement. The misstep became an international punchline, with observers in Europe guffawing at Fox News’ trademark ignorance. “When I heard this, frankly, I choked on my porridge and I thought it must be April Fool’s Day,” British Prime Minister David Cameron told ITV News. “This guy is clearly a complete idiot,” he said, referring to Steve Emerson, who Fox had hosted to discuss recent terror attacks in Paris. In a rare move, Fox apologized repeatedly for its colossal “no-go zone” blunder. Yet the story continues to haunt the network: Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo announced on Tuesday that the city might sue Fox News over the bogus claim that portions of Paris remain cordoned off from non-Muslims. “The image of Paris has been prejudiced, and the honor of Paris has been prejudiced,” Hidalgo told CNN. Bottom line: It’s not even February and Fox News is already having a really bad year. Can you imagine the audible gasps in the Fox News green room when dispatches like this from the Washington Post were read this week: Fox News has been relentlessly pounding Obama every day and every hour since the midterm defeats, and has been piling on all this year. Yet Obama’s approval rating just soared nine points in one month? And talk about insult to injury for Fox. “Obama’s approval ratings at this point in his presidency are similar to those of Ronald Reagan’s as he began his final two years in office,” according to the Post. Obama and the Gipper in the same sentence! Like the Grinch cupping his hand to his ear to listen in on Whoville on Christmas morning, only to be flummoxed that the Whos are still celebrating without any gifts, Fox News talkers must be looking at these surging polling numbers and thinking, how did Obama do that? Simple answer: It’s the economy, stupid. “More Americans are satisfied with the economy than at any point in the past 10 years,” according to NBC.

0fake

Egypt's Sisi invites Palestinian president to Cairo to discuss Trump's Jerusalem move

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has invited Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to Cairo on Monday to discuss U.S. President Donald Trump s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel s capital, a presidential statement said on Sunday. The statement said Sisi wanted to discuss ways to deal with the crisis in a manner that preserves the rights of the Palestinian people and their national sanctities and their legitimate right to establish an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital .

0fake

Veterans Forced to Repay Signing Bonuses…While Billions in Aid Continues Flowing to Israel

Vladimir Putin: The United States continues to sleep with al-Nusra ‹ › Richard Edmondson is an author, novelist, poet, and journalist whose writings often focus on Middle East issues, the Zionist lobby, and religion. His latest novel is The Memoirs of Saint John: When the Sandstone Crumbles , a story about an archaeological team doing a dig in Syria and set amidst the current conflict in the country. In 2014 Richard attended an International Conference on Combating Terrorism and Religious Extremism, held in Damascus. The book is part two in the Memoirs of Saint John series. Two other books by Richard are Rising Up: Class Warfare in America from the Streets to the Airwaves , relating his experiences founding and operating an unlicensed or "pirate" FM radio station in San Francisco in the 1990s, as well as a volume of poetry entitled American Bus Stop: Essay and Poems on Hope and Homelessness . Richard is cognizant of the words of the early Christian writer Tertullian, who in the second century-basically prognosticating the fall of the Roman Empire-wrote: "We have made merry amid the ludicrous cruelties of the noonday exhibition." Veterans Forced to Repay Signing Bonuses…While Billions in Aid Continues Flowing to Israel By Richard Edmondson on October 27, 2016 Petition Launched to Stop Veterans from Having to Repay Bonuses Let’s say you recruit somebody to do a job for you. Because it’s a particularly dirty job, you’re having trouble finding people to fill the position… so… to sweeten the pot, you offer a $20,000 “signing bonus.” That’s in addition, of course, to the monthly salary you plan to pay them. The added incentive helps. People start signing their names on the dotted line to go to work for you. Then nine or ten years pass by. Suddenly one day you think to yourself, “Hell, what did I offer all those bonuses for? That was dumb. I think I’ll demand my money back!” Of course some of the people you paid the money to are no longer alive, and others sustained catastrophic injuries while working for you, but hey! All’s fair in love…and especially in war!!! Well, that’s the predicament that a number of US veterans now find themselves in. Back in the days when the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were ramping up big time, military recruiters took to offering sizeable bonuses to get people to join or reenlist. Recently it was reported that the government has begun demanding this money back. Supposedly the bonuses never should have been paid out in the first place, and the decision to do so was a result of oversight, fraud, and mismanagement. So…long story short, veterans have begun paying back their bonuses, in some cases at the rate of hundreds of dollars per month, while others, those in financial binds who could not afford to meet the additional expenses, are said to be facing wage garnishment. There are reports that veterans are even being charged interest on their outstanding debt. As you may expect, the story of this shabby treatment of American vets has prompted public outrage, and the latest news, posted Wednesday at NPR , is that the Pentagon is now “suspending” the debt collection program. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter is calling for “the fair and equitable treatment of our service members and the rapid resolution of these cases,” although the article seems deliberately vague and ambiguous as to whether the bonuses will have to be repaid or whether the debts will be cancelled. The only thing stated clearly is that Carter intends to establish “a streamlined, centralized process that ensures the fair and equitable treatment of our service members and the rapid resolution of these cases.” The “resolution” (whatever that means) of “these cases” is to be completed by no later than July 1, 2017, the Defense Secretary has announced. “Ultimately, we will provide for a process that puts as little burden as possible on any soldier who received an improper payment through no fault of his or her own,” Carter said. “At the same time, it will respect our important obligation to the taxpayer.” Right now the focal point of the scandal is California, because that’s where most of the illegal bonuses were paid, although it seems veterans in other states may be facing similar demands. Carter’s statement on the matter addresses only the problem in California. A petition has been launched demanding Congress take action to rescind the obligation for veterans to repay the bonuses: In 2006, at the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the California National Guard offered bonuses for troops enlisting and re-enlisting. It was part of an aggressive recruitment effort to retain troops during the height of both of those wars. Now, ten years later, the Pentagon is demanding many of those who received bonuses – almost ten thousand service members – pay them back because they were offered in violation of Federal law. Right now, veterans are receiving letters from debt collectors, they’re being threatened with tax liens, tax return withholdings and other penalties if they do not repay those bonuses. These troops, many of them whom went on to serve overseas, were offered these bonuses in good faith and should not be penalized for what amounts to a bureaucratic failure in oversight. Congress, or the Pentagon need to make this right, and they need to do it immediately. Sign our petition calling for immediate Congressional action, or action from the Defense Department, to use its authority to waive repayment of enlistment or re-enlisted bonuses they accepted in good faith ten years ago. The stories are heartbreaking: “It’s gut-wrenching because you have to figure out what you’re going to do and how you’re going to survive. We were paying upward $1,300 a month back to that recoupment. We weren’t able to afford everything — food for the kids, a day care.” – Christopher Van Meter, Iraq War Veteran and Purple Heart recipient Congress, or the Department of Defense, must take action immediately to make things right for Christopher, and thousands of veterans like him, who are being forced into an impossible situation because of mistakes they did not make. We’re hopeful that there will be resolution on this issue, quickly, and we know that outcome is more likely if we all make our voices heard today. Sign our petition calling for immediate Congressional action, or action from the Defense Department, to use its authority to waive repayment of enlistment or re-enlisted bonuses they accepted in good faith ten years ago. I have worked in financial management at the base level and at the Pentagon. In my view, there is no more important task an agency has than to alleviate any issues related to the undue financial burden placed on these veterans and their families. Thank you for making your voice heard. You can click here to sign the petition. The US has been giving money to Israel since 1951, and of course nobody is presently demanding that any of that be repaid. The year 1979 was an especially watershed year–with $3 billion in US tax dollars being paid out. According to the Jewish Virtual Library, a “second special package” was approved in 1985 due to a “severe economic crisis in Israel,” this consisting of two disbursements, totaling $1.5 billion, handed out in 1985 and ’86. (1) Economic aid, however, has gradually been phased out over the past 2o years and replaced by increases in military aid. In 2007, the Bush administration approved a 10-year, $30 billion package for military expenses, and most recently the Obama administration approved a $38 billion package that will start in 2019 and cover Israel through 2029. The present rate of flow of US tax dollars to Israel is approximately $10.2 million per day. (2) Aid to the Jewish state is of course vigorously pushed by the pro-Israel lobby in Washington. And the lobby, as many of us are aware, doesn’t just clamor for aid; it also promotes wars. It’s interesting that many military veterans now being called upon to repay their signing bonuses are veterans of the Iraq war. In the following video, dating from 2002, you’ll see none other than Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu making a case for military action against Iraq, urging the US to wage “preemptive war”–he actually uses that term, not once but repeatedly–and in the process claiming, falsely, that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons and was on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons. Basically, he plays Congress like a violin. As you watch his performance, a performance that seems almost choreographed, consider what we now know about 9/11, the overwhelming evidence of controlled demolition, and of how the fall of Saddam Hussein led to the rise of ISIS. It’s interesting to note what was going on in 2002 when Netanyahu made that appearance before Congress. This was two years after the start of the second Intifada, and Saddam Hussein had begun paying out sums of money, in some cases $25,000 , to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. That’s a fact of history, though not a well-known one. And while Saddam Hussein posed no threat to the US, quite obviously Israel had plenty of reason for wanting him overthrown. And so Netanyahu made his pitch before Congress. And neocon pundits in the media began fanning the flames of war. Weapons of mass destruction! Mushroom clouds! Smoking guns! Yellowcake uranium from Niger! And off we went to war!! A war essentially for Israel. By 2005 we were caught in a quagmire with no end in sight, and the Pentagon, having trouble meeting enlistment quotas, began sweetening the pot with signing bonuses. Between 2000 and 2008, the money spent on enlistment bonuses rose from $891 million to $1.4 billion. The following is an article from CBS News published back in 2007. You might find it interesting. Twenty-nine-year-old Joan Marte thinks now is the right time to join the army. “I get to travel, basic training sounds like fun,” he says. Yemin Ko, 24, who describes himself as a patriot, is also signing up. “I wanted to do something important,” he says. The Army needs them both to meet its enlistment goals for this year. It surpassed its July recruitment targets by more than 200 new soldiers, CBS News correspondent Michelle Miller reports, by adding recruiters — and with an unprecedented incentive: $20,000 signing bonus given to soldiers willing to ship out to basic training within a month . “The intent of the bonus is to get folks to ship quickly so they can attend basic training and we can meet the end strength the army is required to have,” says Lt. Col. Joseph Feliciano. In New York, recruitment commanders say they’re already seeing better numbers this month since the signing bonuses were put on the table. And the army hopes to pump up those numbers by September 30th, the end of the fiscal year. “Is this what we really want? To bribe people to get them to go and fight an unpopular war?” says Larry Korb, who served as assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan Administration. Korb, who is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, says the new policy will be bad for the army. “They’ve already lowered the standards. Last year, when they did meet their recruiting goals, they had lowered the educational and aptitude standards,” says Korb. Under the new deal, recruits could be serving in a combat zone within four months. “That’s a risk I’m willing to take, and I’m proud of it,” says Ko. Yemin Ko says he’ll be ready to serve, and at a time when every body counts, the Army is banking on the same thing. (3) That was in 2007. Now here we are nine years later, and veterans are being told to repay the money they were paid. One such veteran is Susan Haley, who got sent to Afghanistan in 2008 and is now trying to repay the bonus she received. She presently sends the Pentagon $650 per month–a quarter of her family’s income. “I feel totally betrayed,” Haley told the L.A. Times . “They’ll get their money, but I want those years back.” Haley, 47, spent 26 years in the Army along with her husband and oldest son, a medic who lost his leg in Afghanistan. There is a lot of outrage felt in America now toward our own government, and certainly a lot of it is justified. But maybe Americans, particularly those whose passions have been aroused over the treatment of veterans, should start considering the enormous influence exerted by the Israeli lobby in Washington, along with the possibility that the anger they’re now reserving for their own government is, at least in part, misdirected. Notes: 1. Jewish Virtual Library, US-Israel Foreign Aid 2. If Americans Knew, US Aid 3. CBS News, Army-signing-bonuses-bring-in-recruits, Aug. 11, 2007 Related Posts:

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Treasury's Mnuchin says no tax cut for wealthy

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Thursday that the Trump administration’s upcoming tax plan will not be aimed at lowering income taxes for the wealthiest Americans. “”We are looking for a middle income tax cut. On the high end the plan is to eliminate state and local deductions ... and even if we do end up with a slight reduction on the high end that will be offset by a reduction of deductions so their taxes won’t go down,” Mnuchin said during an interview at a policy forum organized by news outlet Politico. He added that details of the tax reform framework, due for release the week of Sept. 25, would include a specific rate proposal for the corporate tax rate. “You’re going to see a specific rate proposal in that,” Mnuchin said, adding it would also include details on deduction of corporate interest.

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Bayer Forced to Stop Advertising That Neonics Give Plants “A Daily Vitamin”

By Heather Callaghan, Editor Despite the public ire growing against monolithic chemcial corporations like Bayer; the chemical and seed companies are merging to become an even bigger force of...

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Japan's Abe: agreed with Trump, Putin on cooperation over North Korea

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he and U.S. President Donald Trump agreed on Sunday that the international community must step up its response to North Korea after Pyongyang announced it had tested a hydrogen bomb. Abe said he had agreed separately with Russian President Vladimir Putin to cooperate on North Korea. “President Trump and I shared the view that we cannot overlook North Korea’s reckless act and that the international community must show its resolve by applying stronger pressure than had so far been used”, Abe told reporters after the call. “We again confirmed that Japan and the United States are 100 percent together.” It was their second phone call of the day and their fourth since North Korea fired a missile over Japan on Tuesday. Abe said he and Putin agreed that “North Korea’s reckless act is a serious threat” and that they would maintain close contact on the issue. He noted that he and the Russian leader are scheduled to meet this week on the sidelines of a gathering in Vladivostok.

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BREAKING: Republican Governor Arrested On Multiple Charges, GOP In CHAOS

It s the end of Alabama Governor Robert Bentley s political career after he was arrested Monday on charges related to the numerous things he did to cover up an affair. The governor was booked into Montgomery County Jail on two charges related to his failure to disclose campaign information and submitted a letter of resignation shortly afterward.The scandal began to make its way to the public when Bentley fired the head of the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, Spencer Collier, who later revealed that he had investigated and seen evidence of an affair between the 74-year-old Bentley and his campaign spokeswoman, Rebekah Mason. This is of course odd given Bentley s opposition to gay marriage on the one man one woman basis, but having an affair is not illegal. Unfortunately for him, the rest of the stuff he did is. A press release from the Alabama Ethics Commission details the rest:Today, the Alabama Ethics Commission found probable cause to believe that Governor Robert Bentley committed violations of both the Alabama Ethics Act and the Fair Campaign Practices Act. We have referred those matters to the Montgomery County District Attorney for further consideration and possible prosecution.Intentional violations of the Alabama Ethics Act and the Fair Campaign Practices Act are Class B felonies. The range of punishment for a Class B felony is a prison sentence of between 2 and 20 years per violation, and a fine of up to $20,000.00, per violation. As these matters are still ongoing, the Commission is prohibited by law from any further comment regarding any of the evidence produced or presented in this case.Over the course of this year-long investigation, the Alabama Ethics Commission issued more subpoenas than have been issued by the Commission since it was given subpoena power. Chief Special Agent Tony Goubil and Special Agent Dustin Lansford devoted countless hours in conducting this investigation. They interviewed over 45 witnesses and have analyzed over 33,000 documents in the course of their investigation. The staff of the Commission has worked tirelessly and thoroughly to investigate every Complaint that we received. The evidence was reviewed and tested multiple times by career lawyers. These lawyers include Hugh Evans our General Counsel who has devoted his career to Ethics, as well as our new Assistant General Counsel, Cynthia Propst Raulston, a career prosecutor whose experience includes analyzing and successfully trying complex white collar and public corruption cases to conclusion before juries. Our Commissioners, who include two retired Circuit Judges, two career attorneys and a doctor, all of whom have vast experience sifting through evidence, judging the testimony of witnesses and applying difficult principles in a fair, even-handed manner, ultimately weighed the evidence and returned this finding.Justice (if you can call it that) moved swiftly after his arrest. Bentley copped a plea and was fined $2,000 and ordered to perform 100 hours of community service. He also agreed not to run for office again..@GovernorBentley: I have decided it is time for me to step down as Alabama s governor FTR #ForTheRecord @MSNBC https://t.co/AMmmRIrxBF Greta Van Susteren (@greta) April 10, 2017This, as strange as it sounds, should strike fear in the heart of Donald Trump. As a man who regularly bullies anyone who criticizes him or correctly states inconvenient facts and as someone who has a history of firing people who were investigating him or those close to him, Bentley s arrest should be a clear message that no matter how much you abuse your power to cover up something in Trump s case his campaign s collusion with a hostile foreign dictator the American people won t let you get away with it.Featured image via screengrab

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Britain, Germany committed to Iran nuclear deal: May's office

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain and Germany agreed on Sunday they remained committed to the nuclear deal with Iran after a U.S. decision to decertify the agreement, a spokeswoman said after a call between Prime Minister Theresa May and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. They agreed the UK and Germany both remained firmly committed to the deal, the spokeswoman said in a statement. They also agreed the international community needed to continue to come together to push back against Iran s destabilizing regional activity, and to explore ways of addressing concerns about Iran s ballistic missile program.

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Israel votes: Netanyahu's last-ditch vow to his base – a dead peace process (+video)

Politicians make many campaign promises they don't intend to deliver on. But Netanyahu's promise Monday to never agree to a Palestinian state fits his record. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talks as he visits a construction site in Har Homa, east Jerusalem, Monday March 16, 2015, a day ahead of legislative elections. Netanyahu is seeking his fourth term as prime minister. With Israel's final pre-election polls pointing to a difficult road for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stay in power, he spent his final days on the campaign trail throwing red meat to his base. Pro-Likud robocalls warned Israeli voters that only Mr. Netanyahu has the strength to stand up to "Hussein Obama." Campaign ads compared Israeli dock workers and regulators to Hamas militants and called his opponents tools of shadowy foreign financiers (a strange charge given his own close ties to US casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson). But on Monday the prime minister delivered his show stopper: Vote for me and I'll kill what's left of the peace process stone dead. Though not his precise words, that was their meaning. And this is one campaign promise that voters could probably take to the bank. If that promise helps tip the electoral balance in his favor, it would mean the road to a Palestinian state that was at the heart of the Oslo Accords signed over 20 years ago has come to a dead end. "I think that anyone who moves to establish a Palestinian state and evacuate territory, gives territory away to radical Islamic attacks against Israel," he told NRG, a pro-settler news website owned by Mr. Adelson. He warned in the interview that if the more dovish Zionist Union headed by Isaac Herzog won, the new government would "do the bidding" of the international community. That was code for freezing settlement construction in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem and focusing on a Palestinian peace deal drawn on the borders that prevailed before 1967's Arab-Israeli war – all leading to the creation of a "Hamastan" in Jerusalem. Without a Palestinian state and Israel's evacuation of at least some of the settlements it has built on land captured in 1967, what's left of the so-called peace process becomes a farce. There simply isn't that much more to talk about. To be sure, it's a somewhat academic question at this point. There has been no process to speak of for years, US Secretary of State John Kerry's protestations to the contrary notwithstanding. When it was announced that former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was stepping down from his role as the so-called Quartet's special envoy on Middle East peace – after 8 years on the job – it was the first he'd been heard from on the issue in quite some time. While spending most of his tenure talking about "transformational change" for Palestinians through investment promotion, Mr. Blair was also tending to his growing consulting empire, whose clients include companies like JPMorgan Chase and governments like Kazakhstan and Abu Dhabi. Middle East peace, particularly the creation of the Palestinian state that the "Quartet" – the UN, EU, US and Russia – says is key, steadily receded from view. But at least lip service was paid to that ultimate goal by all concerned – including Netanyahu. In 2009, in a speech following President Barack Obama's Cairo address, in which the then-new US leader spoke of a new chapter for the Palestinians, Netanyahu said as long as there were strong US security guarantees for Israel and a recognition of the Jewish state by the Palestinian Authority that "we will be ready ... to reach a solution where a demilitarized Palestinian state exists alongside a Jewish state." Almost six years on, he has repudiated that position. It was no mistake that one of his last campaign stops Monday was in Har Homa, a Jewish settlement of 20,000 people wedged between Jerusalem and the ancient Palestinian town of Bethlehem. Netanyahu approved construction work on Har Homa during his first term as prime minister, in 1997. On Monday he confirmed what has long been suspected – that settlements like Har Homa were established to make any Palestinian claims on parts of Jerusalem impossible. "We will preserve Jerusalem's unity in all its parts," he told voters. "We will continue to build and fortify Jerusalem so that its division won't be possible and it will stay united forever." The Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas views East Jerusalem as its future capital, and that portion of the city is considered occupied by Israel under international law. Since the late 1990s a network of concrete walls, checkpoints, Israeli-only roads, and settlements in the West Bank has hemmed in and divided Palestinian population centers, effectively chopping into pieces the territory that was meant to be the heartland of a Palestinian state. Integrating them into something resembling a working economic and political whole would require settlement concessions. And Netanyahu has now promised he will never make those concessions. Turnout in voting Tuesday has been brisk. Haaretz reports that about 14 percent of eligible Israelis had voted by 10 AM local time, a clip 20 percent faster than in the country's two previous elections. The final polls projected Likud slipping. Israel's Channel 2 had Likud down to 20 seats in its final poll on Friday, with the Zionist Union projected at 24. Yet even if Herzog's party wins more seats, Netanyahu will still have a path to power. Smaller right-wing and religious parties could pull enough seats to form a governing coalition – with Netanyahu once again at the head of the table. A likely partner for Netanyahu is Naftali Bennett, head of the pro-settlement Jewish Home party. Indeed, Netanyahu said his first call – after the election results are in – would be to Mr. Bennett. His party favors formal annexation of the major settlement blocks in the West Bank's "Area C" and has compared the creation of a Palestinian state to "suicide" for Israel. Area C covers about 60 percent of the West Bank, and intersperses the Palestinian towns and cities.

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Sally Yates Bombshell: Trump Was Warned Flynn Was Exposing White House To Blackmail (VIDEO)

Sally Yates testimony before a congressional committee on the events leading up to Trump s disgraced former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn resigning and her own firing for speaking out against him had always promised to contain some explosive revelations. And it didn t take long for the match to be lit.Early into Yates appearance in front of the committee, she got down to brass tacks. She had told Trump three separate times that Michael Flynn was trouble. In every case she was ignored, save for White House counsel demanding to know whether Flynn was facing a criminal charge. What s more, Yates testified that she has specifically told the Trump administration that there was a great deal of evidence to suggest Flynn was either susceptible to blackmail from the Russians or already compromised. Again, she was ignored and then later fired.Particularly damning, Yates said that she watched in horror as Flynn s own lies about his involvement with the Russians was being passed along to the media by others within the administration, including Vice President Mike Pence. (Pence later confirmed this by claiming he had believed what Flynn was telling him at the time.) She noted that this created a situation where the national security adviser was digging an increasingly deep hole for himself with lies and implicating everyone around him as well. She added that this was not lost on the Russians, who given their relationship with Flynn were holding cold, hard proof of Flynn s lies and could threaten to release it at any time.Yates: the National Security Adviser, essentially, could be blackmailed by the Russians. via @MSNBC pic.twitter.com/DTIAQcZ6y0 Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) May 8, 2017It s a classic blackmail set up: Let the mark get in too deep, make sure the risk of exposure is too big a cost to bear, then use that vulnerability against him or her.Unfortunately, Trump s administration chose to stick by Flynn rather than slip out of the noose that was rapidly tightening around their necks. Making matters worse, by repeating Flynn s lies, they were also exposing themselves to blackmail. A White House run by a person famous for never apologizing to anyone in his life was walking headlong into a massive scandal what would they do to avoid responsibility for it?As Yates put it: You don t want the national security adviser to be in a position where the Russians have leverage over him At some point, the debate over what exactly Trump knew and when he knew it becomes moot. Even if Trump were completely blameless in the coordinated relationship between his trusted adviser and the country undermining American democracy, it would only reinforce that his stupidity qualified as criminal negligence. Obama warned him. Yates warned him. The FBI warned him. The media warned him. And he ignored all of them to protect his friend a man now claiming to be a foreign agent.Featured image via Twitter

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Russian oil giant Rosneft to restore Romanov palace near St. Petersburg

Russian oil giant Rosneft to restore Romanov palace near St. Petersburg The residence, which is in a state of disrepair, will be rented to the Russian oil corporation for 99 years and will be opened to tourists following restoration. Facebook rosneft , RBTH Daily , romanov dinasty , st. petersburg The Ropsha Palace was built by decree of Peter the Great. Source: Lori/Legion-Media The Ropsha Palace, an 18th-century residence near St. Petersburg built by order of Peter the Great, is to be rented to the state-owned Rosneft oil corporation for 99 years. Making the announcement on Oct. 25, Russian Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky said that the company will restore the palace, which is in a state of disrepair, and will create access for tourists to the estate after restoration. What is the palace famous for? The Ropsha palace and park ensemble is an 18th-century architectural monument and a former residence of the Romanov imperial family. The estate was built by decree of Peter the Great and was intended to resemble Carlsbad (Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic). Later, during Empress Elizabeth's reign, Italian architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli designed a new two-story palace on the site. A large-scale park was cultivated around it. After Catherine II (the Great) usurped her husband Emperor Peter III, she sent him to Ropsha where he died in mysterious circumstances. The Ropsha Palace before 1917 / Source: public domain Following the October Revolution the palace was nationalized, and in 1944 it was burned by the retreating German troops. After the war the estate was restored and it was used for military purposes: First the summer unit was stationed there, then the chemical protection battalion from the Leningrad Military District. In various periods a fish hatchery was located at Ropsha, as well as a cattle-breeding farm, a poultry farm and other agricultural structures. In the 1960s the palace was placed under state protection and at the end of the 1970s it was mothballed. How much will it cost to restore the ruins? Despite the fact that since 1990 the Ropsha palace and park ensemble has been on the UNESCO World Heritage list and is a monument of federal significance, most of the buildings on the estate are in ruins. The palace after the fire / Source: Kommersant The palace was severely damaged by several fires in the late 1980s and early 1990s. And in 2015 five columns in the palace's portico collapsed. Afterwards, the Russian Culture Ministry allotted 15 million rubles ($241,000) for urgent work to save the monument. St. Petersburg officials say that many monuments in Ropsha are heavily damaged and some, such as bridges and hydraulic structures, are completely destroyed. This means the overall cost of the restoration may exceed five billion rubles ($80 million). Why is the state looking for investors to restore the monuments? Since the high costs and great difficulties in restoring cultural heritage objects do not always permit the state to carry out the work using budget resources, commercial enterprises and patrons are often invited to fund the restoration projects. The palace after the fire / Source: Kommersant For example, VTB Bank and the Gatchina Alcohol Factory financed most of the restoration of the Gatchina Palace near St. Petersburg, although the monument remained a government property. The state can decide to auction or rent cultural heritage objects and dictate the conditions for their renovation. Privatization of local, regional and even federal monuments has existed since Jan. 1, 2008. There are more than 100 examples of privatized monuments with conditions for their restoration. For example, the recently opened New Holland complex in St. Petersburg was reconstructed with the help of Roman Abramovich's New Holland Development.

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Australian police charge man for attacking former PM Abbott

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian police charged a 38-year-old man on Friday for allegedly assaulting former prime minister and same-sex marriage opponent Tony Abbott in the Tasmanian city of Hobart. The man was charged with Common Assault following an investigation into a complaint made by Abbott, Tasmania police said on its Facebook page. Abbott told local media he was headbutted by a man wearing a yes badge in support of same-sex marriage on Thursday evening. Australia began a non-compulsory postal vote this month to determine whether it becomes the 25th country to legalize same-sex marriage. The emotionally charged campaign has seen an alarming volume of hate speech, spurring parliament to pass emergency legislation to outlaw opponents spewing their vitriol while the vote was in progress. Abbott, who is actively campaigning for the no side, sustained minor injuries from the attack including a slightly swollen lip. Police did not comment on the motivation of the attack. Earlier this month, the godson of former prime minister Kevin Rudd was allegedly assaulted in Brisbane by a man who was tearing down rainbow flags put up in support of same-sex marriage. In May, Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce, who is openly gay, had a lemon meringue pie launched at his face in a protest about his advocacy for same-sex marriage.

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Obamacare 2018 enrollment clouded by uncertainty under Trump

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As Americans began signing up for Obamacare health insurance plans on Wednesday, experts expected reduced participation as a bitter political debate clouds the program’s future. Republicans in Congress have repeatedly failed to repeal and replace former President Barack Obama’s healthcare law, which they have said drives up costs for consumers and interferes with personal medical decisions. Democrats have warned that repeal would leave millions of Americans without health coverage. President Donald Trump promised to kill Obama’s Affordable Care Act in his 2016 election campaign, and has taken steps to undermine a law he has declared “dead” and “imploding”. Trump’s administration cut Obamacare advertising by 90 percent and shortened the enrollment period by half. “The market’s going to be extremely confusing. There’s going to be entire complexity of choice,” said David Anderson, a health policy researcher at Duke University. Obama took to social media on Wednesday, encouraging Americans who need insurance to sign up on the federal Healthcare.gov website. He stressed that government tax credits would keep coverage affordable for most. Obama asked people to get out the word, “because this country works best when we look out for one another.” A new Trump ad, paid for by the Republican National Committee, blamed Democrats for Obamacare’s “skyrocketing” insurance premiums and for blocking efforts to repeal the law. Obamacare advocates have warned that sign-ups for individual insurance coverage under the law could drop by about one million people in 2018 compared with 2017. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that four million fewer people will sign up for Obamacare private insurance than previously forecast due to Trump policies. Still, CBO expects total enrollment to reach 11 million in 2018, up from the around 10 million who obtained and paid for coverage in 2017. Administration officials could not immediately say when 2018 enrollment data would be made public. The Trump administration has cut the 2018 enrollment period in half to six weeks from Nov. 1 to Dec. 15 for states using the federal Healthcare.gov website. Enrollment previously ran until Jan. 31, and many consumers tended to sign up in the last two weeks, according to state officials and organizations that help people choose insurance. The administration has also cut off billions of dollars in subsidies that insurers use to discount out-of-pocket medical costs for low-income Americans and cut funding to groups that help people enroll in health insurance. Several insurers have exited Obamacare markets due to concerns over subsidies and other Trump actions. Those that remained raised monthly premium prices to account for the lost government subsidies. Senate Republicans and Democrats are working on legislation to stabilize Obamacare markets in the short term, including restoring the subsidies. But Trump has sought more far-reaching changes, and urged Republicans to take up full-scale repeal again in the coming months. The Department of Health and Human Services said on Monday that premiums for the most popular Obamacare plans would rise 37 percent in 2018. Americans eligible for Obamacare tax credits to buy insurance may pay less for coverage, but middle-class consumers who do not get subsidies will face much higher prices for these plans. “It’s been such a flood of information. A lot of the population thinks the Affordable Care Act has already been put under,” said Daniel Polsky, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and executive director of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. “The strange premium increases are going to be very confusing for consumers.” The Trump administration is now planning changes for 2019. Last week, it proposed a rule giving states more flexibility over the benefits that must be covered by insurance. Under Obamacare, all insurers have to cover a set of 10 benefits, such as maternity and newborn care and prescription drugs.

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Comment on Collusion Between Facebook and Hillary’s Campaign Revealed in Clinton Emails by mad-aussie

Posted on October 29, 2016 by Michael DePinto Who would have thought right? Hillary’s campaign establishing what appears to be some very close ties with the largest social media company ( Facebook ) on the Internet, right in the midst of her presidential campaign? It’s not enough that Hillary has Google hiding various stories from Clinton search queries, but it looks like she had to go and get Facebook on board to help her cheat as well. But should Trump supporters take any issue with that? Sure, there’s been issues in the past with Facebook banning conservatives for merely looking at their monitors the wrong way, but all that changed this week right? If you recall, earlier this week we learned that despite donating huge amounts of money to Hillary’s campaign, allegedly Mark Zuckerberg betrayed Hillary Clinton, and actually jumped on board the Trump Train … or is there more to this? In the video below I dig a bit deeper into both these stories… Emails Show Connection Between Facebook Executive, Clinton Campaign … kept the interactions with Clinton private … A new WikiLeaks email dump shows Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg eager and willing to be involved in helping Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Sandberg’s role in helping the research-driven Clinton campaign was revealed in a WikiLeaks email from Clinton aide Cheryl Mills. “I have arranged for Sheryl Sandberg and her researcher to be available on 5 March at 10 am to step through the research on gender and leadership by women,” Mills wrote in a February 2015 email. Two months after that meeting, Sandberg offered to do more for the campaign in response to an email from campaign chairman John Podesta expressing sympathy for the death of her husband. “I still want HRC to win badly ,” Sandberg wrote in May 2015. “I am still here to help as I can. She came over and was magical with my kids.” Facebook has said that Sandberg was acting in a private capacity in sharing research with the Clinton campaign. Sandberg kept the interactions with Clinton private, and did not formally, publicly endorse Clinton until early 2016. However, she kept in touch with the campaign. In August 2015, she emailed Podesta offering to put him in touch with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg , a staunch opponent of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump . “Mark is meeting with people to learn more about next steps for his philanthropy and social action and it’s hard to imagine someone better placed or more experienced than you to help him,” she wrote. “He’s begun to think about whether/how he might want to shape advocacy efforts to support his philanthropic priorities and is particularly interested in meeting people who could help him understand how to move the needle on the specific public policy issues he cares most about,” she added. “He wants to meet folks who can inform his understanding about effective political operations to advance public policy goals on social oriented objectives (like immigration, education or basic scientific research),” she wrote. The WikiLeaks emails from Podesta’s account imply a meeting was arranged later that month. SOCIAL MEDIA GIANTS ARE ACTUALLY GOVERNMENT CREATIONS: If you doubt that the CIA made Google, and Google made the NSA, but you don’t read the following: save your worthless drivel for someone who cares. If you don’t have the facts presented, how can you presume to dispute then? Conversely, if you dispute the facts presented with evidence stacked higher than Mt. Everest, by all means… let’s hear it, but support your opinions with FACTS, not platitudes.

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95 YR OLD WWII VETERAN Writes Scathing Letter To Obama: “I can’t figure out what country you’re the president of”

When WWII veteran and Pearl Harbor resident, Harold Estes wrote this letter, he was a retired Master Chief Boatswains Mate. He died on May 7, 2011. This is the most amazing and honest letter to our Community Organizer In Chief that you will ever read. Although this letter was written in 2009, its content is surprisingly still very timely. He discusses Obama s disdain for our police, military and America in general and even addresses his warped views on race in America. Enjoy Dear President Obama,My name is Harold Estes, approaching 95 on December 13 of this year. People meeting me for the first time don t believe my age because I remain wrinkle free and pretty much mentally alert.I enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1934 and served proudly before, during and after WW II retiring as a Master Chief Bos n Mate. Now I live in a rest home located on the western end of Pearl Harbor allowing me to keep alive the memories of 23 years of service to my country.One of the benefits of my age, perhaps the only one, is to speak my mind, blunt and direct even to the head man.So here goes.I am amazed, angry and determined not to see my country die before I do but you seem hell bent not to grant me that wish.I can t figure out what country you are the president of. You fly around the world telling our friends and enemies despicable lies like: We re no longer a Christian nation America is arrogant (Your wife even announced to the world, America is mean-spirited. Please tell her to try preaching that nonsense to 23 generations of our war dead buried all over the globe who died for no other reason than to free a whole lot of strangers from tyranny and hopelessness.) I d say shame on the both of you but I don t think you like America nor do I see an ounce of gratefulness in anything you do for the obvious gifts this country has given you. To be without shame or gratefulness is a dangerous thing for a man sitting in the White House.After 9/11 you said, America hasn t lived up to her ideals. Which ones did you mean?1. Was it the notion of personal liberty that 11,000 farmers and shopkeepers died for to win independence from the British ?2. Or maybe the ideal that no man should be a slave to another man that 500,000 men died for in the Civil War?3. I hope you didn t mean the ideal 470,000 fathers, brothers, husbands, and a lot of fellahs I knew personally died for in WWII, because we felt real strongly about not letting any nation push us around because we stand for freedom.4. I don t think you mean the ideal that says equality is better than discrimination. You know the one that a whole lot of white people understood when they helped to get you elected.Take a little advice from a very old geezer, young man. Shape up and start acting like an American. If you don t, I ll do what I can to see you get shipped out of that fancy rental on Pennsylvania Avenue. You were elected to lead not to bow, apologize and kiss the hands of murderers and corrupt leaders who still treat their people like slaves.And just who do you think you are telling the American people not to jump to conclusions and condemn that Muslim major who killed 13 of his fellow soldiers and wounded dozens more. You mean you don t want us to do what you did when that white cop used force to subdue that black college professor in Massachusetts who was putting up a fight? You don t mind offending the police calling them stupid but you don t want us to offend Muslim fanatics by calling them what they are, terrorists.One more thing. I realize you never served in the military and never had to defend your country with your life but you re the Commander-in-Chief now, son. Do your job. When your battle-hardened field General asks you for 40,000 more troops to complete the mission, give them to him. But if you re not in this fight to win, then get out. The life of one American soldier is not worth the best political strategy you re thinking of.You could be our greatest president because you face the greatest challenge ever presented to any president.You re not going to restore American greatness by bringing back our bloated economy. That s not our greatest threat. Losing the heart and soul of who we are as Americans is our big fight now. And I sure as hell don t want to think my president is the enemy in this final battle.Sincerely,Harold B. EstesHarold B. Estes and many of his peers are part of a generation that is known as The Greatest Generation. Estes, a World War II veteran credited with helping bring the USS Missouri and Bowfin museums to Hawaii, and who gained Internet fame with a letter written to President Barack Obama telling him to shape up and start acting like an American, died Tuesday May 17, 2011.Bringing the battleship Missouri to Pearl Harbor started as an idea tossed around in 1994 by Estes, retired Adm. Ron Hays and Navy veteran Edwin Carter, according to the museum.Estes served over 20 years in the Navy. He took to the Navy like the proverbial duck takes to the water. Estes loved the Navy and the Navy returned that love. His first ship was the battleship California, later sunk at Pearl Harbor.Estes was a true gentleman. He didn t have a political bone in his body, and he loved America and his fellow veterans.A letter critical of Obama penned by Estes several years ago went viral on the Internet and references to it are still numerous.

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Dan Rather Breaks Objectivity, SHREDS Trump Over ‘Second Amendment’ Comments

Dan Rather, an often unbiased and objective presence in what was once credible media, has officially bucked his long-held objectivity and completely and utterly destroyed Donald Trump after his now infamous Second Amendment comment.Taking to Facebook, Rather, who has gone on the record questioning Trump s antics on the campaign trial, blasted the GOP nominee for directing threats at Hillary Clinton, saying his comments now no longer about policy, civility, decency or even temperament, but something more nefarious:No trying-to-be objective and fair journalist, no citizen who cares about the country and its future can ignore what Donald Trump said today. When he suggested that The Second Amendment People can stop Hillary Clinton he crossed a line with dangerous potential. By any objective analysis, this is a new low and unprecedented in the history of American presidential politics. This is no longer about policy, civility, decency or even temperament. This is a direct threat of viol ence against a political rival. It is not just against the norms of American politics, it raises a serious question of whether it is against the law. If any other citizen had said this about a Presidential candidate, would the Secret Service be investigating?Candidate Trump will undoubtedly issue an explanation; some of his surrogates are already engaged in trying to gloss it over, but once the words are out there they cannot be taken back. That is what inciting violence means.Rather is absolutely right. Had anyone else but Donald Trump said this, they would have been arrested and thoroughly interrogated, no questions asked.And Trump is already making up excuses. It was a joke. He meant more bodyguards and armed citizens. He meant protecting the Second Amendment in the Court. Yadda yadda yadda. More excuses from the candidate that tells it like it is. For the people who like Trump because he speaks his mind, they certainly have to make excuses for what he says all the time.It s time the other media heads follow Rather and break this objectivity that stops them from criticizing Trump when he says something stupid. For too long the media has allowed him to get away with his insane rhetoric.Featured image Kirk Irwin/Getty Images

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More Footage Of Operation High Jump With Hitler!

More Footage Of Operation High Jump With Hitler! page: 1 link Hi everyone. This was on my youtube feed today and thought I would share it and maybe get some feedback. Thru all my years of paranormal and alien spaceship research and experiences, I came to the conclusion that it was all man made. After watching this video, I am even more convinced of them being man made. There is so much technology they aren't telling us.Well, I hope you get a chance to view this and let me know what you think. Are they man made? a reply to: childoffather They knew about the technology were using right now in the 50's and 60's. I have heard the public are ten years behind what they know technologically. 40 to 60 years ago...we have come a long way baby. Not sure about the moon landing though. lol. link originally posted by: carewemust I guess there was no reason to HOAX a fake Moon landing, since the technology was available, even before the 1960's. Was probably even more refined by 1967. That's not true. We don't understand the dynamics of space so what we can do outside of the atmosphere and inside of the atmosphere we have no idea. How the moonlanding was a hoax we also do not understand. It could be a coverup of some sort or another. link a reply to: childoffather factor the exponential growth of tech into the equation and start from the early 1930's instead of the 90's. originally posted by: Darkmadness originally posted by: carewemust I guess there was no reason to HOAX a fake Moon landing, since the technology was available, even before the 1960's. Was probably even more refined by 1967. That's not true. We don't understand the dynamics of space so what we can do outside of the atmosphere and inside of the atmosphere we have no idea. How the moonlanding was a hoax we also do not understand. It could be a coverup of some sort or another. Or a distraction...h .

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Hillary’s Reaction To Her Cubbies FINALLY Winning The World Series Is PRICELESS (IMAGES)

The Chicago Cubs have just won the World Series for the first time after 108 years, and one Chicago native couldn t be happier about it.That person? Hillary Clinton.Born in Chicago, and raised in the suburbs, Hillary has never in her lifetime, along with pretty much every Cubs fan, seen the Cubbies go all the way and become World Champions.Well, on Wednesday, November 2, 2016, all that changed. The Cubs went head to head with the Cleveland Indians to win 8-7 in extra innings during Game 7. It was a baseball game for the ages.Unable to contain her emotions, the press following Hillary on the campaign trail were able to catch her reactions to the Cubs big game and win, and it s pretty priceless.Here are some amazing images:Hillary Clinton watching Cubs win the World Series. #WorldSeries #Cubs pic.twitter.com/U1L3dIBs2Q Gilbert (@gilbertmacias) November 3, 2016Here s a closer look at those reactions.via Twittervia TwitterShe s pretty much thanking the Lord that her hometown team finally went all the way and in the most epic fashion. It couldn t have been a bigger nailbiter of a game if you scripted it.Hopefully, this is just one of two victories Hillary will be celebrating within the next week. The presidential election between her and Donald Trump is also becoming a bit of a nailbiter, and we ll all be on the edge of our seats for that match-up as well.Featured Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images

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Polish legal experts say Poland can demand German reparations

WARSAW (Reuters) - Polish parliamentary legal experts ruled on Monday that Warsaw has the right to demand reparations from Germany for its actions in the country during World War Two, although Poland s foreign minister indicated that no immediate claim would be made. The issue of reparations, revived by Poland s eurosceptic ruling party Law and Justice (PiS) after decades of improving relations with Germany, could escalate tensions between the two European Union governments. In a non-binding ruling, the experts said a decision by Poland s communist authorities in the 1950s to relinquish all claims against Germany over damages caused by its invasion and occupation of much of Poland was unconstitutional and invalid. (The communist government) was forced into this by the Soviet Union, and Poland was not a sovereign state at the time, said Arkadiusz Mularczyk, a PiS deputy who had commissioned the study. Poland has a legal basis to demand reparations. The PiS government deeply distrustful of Germany has raised calls for wartime compensation in recent weeks but it has yet to officially demand reparations. Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski said on Monday that discussions on the issue may not yield the appropriate result . But they should take place to inform the German side about the enormity of destruction it has caused, he told public broadcaster TVP1. Waszczykowski added further analysis was needed before any claims were lodged. Six million Poles, including three million Polish Jews, were killed during the war, and the capital Warsaw was razed to the ground in 1944 after a failed uprising in which 200,000 civilians died. Relations between Germany and Poland had warmed following the 1989 collapse of communism, particularly under the previous centrist government in Warsaw. But they have sunk to a decade low since the nationalist-leaning PiS won a parliamentary election in 2015. It says Berlin wields too much influence within the EU. PiS also frequently invokes Poland s suffering under the German occupation as part of a broader effort it says aims to promote patriotism at home, and to counter accusations that some Poles were also perpetrators of wartime crimes against the Jews. Under communism, Poles were taught to believe that, with a few exceptions, the nation had conducted itself honorably during a war that killed a fifth of the Polish population. But a series of books and films have questioned this self-image in recent years, opening a painful debate over collective guilt and reconciliation. German parliamentary legal experts said last month that Warsaw had no right to demand reparations.

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Jeb Bush loses TV ad edge to Marco Rubio

Killing Obama administration rules, dismantling Obamacare and pushing through tax reform are on the early to-do list.

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MUSLIMS Are Not Going To Like Announcement By America’s First Muslim Miss U.S.A. [VIDEO]

Will the Muslim community still embrace the first Muslim Miss U.S.A. following her recent conversion? Rima Fakih is believed to be the first Muslim to win the title of Miss USA when she was crowned the winner in 2010.Now, the beauty pageant winner has converted to Christianity, recently sharing a verse from Philippians on Twitter.Philippians 4:13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me pic.twitter.com/RSTZ9IJD3Z Rima Fakih (@RimaFakih) March 30, 2016Fakih converted to Christianity last month in preparation for her marriage in Lebanon next week to Wassim Salibi, a wealthy Christian music producer, Christian Today reports.At the time of winning the Miss USA title, Fakih said, I d like to say I m American first, and I am an Arab-American, I am Lebanese-American, and I am Muslim-American. According to the news site Albawaba, Fakih only connected to her Muslim roots in college. When I went to the University of Michigan, because there s more of a Muslim community, my dad wanted me to learn more about Islam, she said. I didn t know much about Ramadan and other holidays, and my dad wanted me to take that opportunity and learn. After winning Miss America, Fakih was involved in some controversy when photos surfaced of her participating in a radio station s Stripper 101 contest. She was also convicted of drunk driving in 2012. Even so, the Muslim community still supported her. But will they support her now considering her recent conversion to Christianity? Via: Fox News

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Three CEOs resign from Trump council over Charlottesville

(Reuters) - The chief executives of Intel Corp, Merck & Co Inc and Under Armour Inc resigned from U.S. President Donald Trump’s American Manufacturing Council on Monday, following Trump’s initially tepid response to weekend violence at a rally of white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia. "I resigned from the council to call attention to the serious harm our divided political climate is causing to critical issues...," Intel Chief Executive Brian Krzanich said in a blog post. intel.ly/2fFOjAd Kenneth Fraizer, the chief executive of drugmaker Merck and an African-American, said he left the advisory council because of the president’s reaction after the violence between white supremacists and counter protesters. Frazier cited the need to “take a stand against intolerance and extremism.” The AFL-CIO, a federation of labor unions that represent 12.5 million workers, said it was considering pulling its representative on the committee. After the white nationalist rally turned deadly on Saturday, Trump initially said that many sides were to blame. On Monday, in a statement, Trump denounced neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan as criminals and thugs, bowing to mounting political pressure as critics assailed him for not singling out white supremacists. The CEO of Under Armour, Kevin Plank, announced his resignation from the council in a Twitter posting. “We remain resolute in our potential and ability to improve American manufacturing,” said Plank. “However, Under Armour engages in innovation and sports, not politics.” Plank was criticized last winter by some of Under Armour’s biggest stars over his support of Trump, comments that basketball star Stephen Curry echoed. The demonstration in Charlottesville by hundreds of white nationalists took a deadly turn on Saturday when a car plowed into a group of counter protesters and killed one person. "America's leaders must honor our fundamental views by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy, which run counter to the American ideal that all people are created equal," Frazier said in a statement announcing his resignation. (bit.ly/2fFnITM) “As CEO of Merck and as a matter of personal conscience, I feel a responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism,” he said. Trump responded shortly later in a tweet, saying, “Ken Frazier of Merck Pharma has resigned from President’s Manufacturing Council, he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!” Trump doubled down on his attack later in the day, tweeting that Merck “is a leader in higher & higher drug prices while at the same time taking jobs out of the U.S. Bring jobs back & LOWER PRICES!” The son of a janitor, Frazier joined Merck as general counsel of one of the drugmaker’s subsidiaries in 1992, working his way up to CEO of the company in 2011. He made his name as the company’s top lawyer, steering it through daunting litigation over Vioxx, its widely used painkiller that was withdrawn in 2004 after being linked to heart attacks. Many observers thought Merck would eventually have to shell out $10 billion or more to thousands of plaintiffs over the drug’s withdrawal. But Frazier’s legal strategy led to a $4.85 billion settlement in 2007, allowing Merck to refocus on its pipeline of experimental medicines. Merck shares closed up 0.5 percent on the New York Stock Exchange, roughly in line with the wider market. Frazier frequently made political contributions during the 2016 election, donating to both Republican and Democratic members of Congress but making no donations to a presidential candidate during the year. The political PAC maintained by Merck and funded through donations from Merck employees made over $1.1 million in candidate contributions during the 2016 campaign - but did not contribute to Trump or his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, according to documents filed with the Federal Elections Commission. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, which represents the pharmaceutical industry and lobbies on its behalf in Congress, declined to offer a statement of support for Frazier or to comment on Trump’s reaction. The industry’s silence comes as Trump is finalizing an executive order on drug prices that would relax industry regulation and contains measures that, some say, would protect existing drug prices or even increase them. Individually, at least one CEO, John Maraganore of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, tweeted his support, saying he was “proud to stand with leaders like Ken Frazier.” Other top business leaders also spoke out in response to the violence in Charlottesville. “I support Ken Frazier’s decision. I’m thankful we have business leaders such as Ken to remind America of its better angels,” said Hewlett Packard Enterprises CEO Meg Whitman, who ran for governor of California as a Republican in 2010. Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein tweeted: “Lincoln: ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’ Isolate those who try to separate us. No equivalence w/ those who bring us together.” Richard Trumka, president of the largest federation of U.S. labor unions, the AFL-CIO, questioned the council’s effectiveness and said the group was mulling leaving. “The AFL-CIO has unequivocally denounced the actions of bigoted domestic terrorists in Charlottesville and called on the president to do the same,” Trumka said in a statement. Several executives from top U.S. companies have previously stepped down from a number of presidential advisory councils in protest to Trump policies. Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk and Walt Disney Co CEO Robert Iger left the President’s Strategic and Policy Forum, a business advisory group, in June, after Trump said he would withdraw from the Paris climate accord. Musk also left the manufacturing council. Former Uber Technologies Inc [UBER.UL] CEO Travis Kalanick quit the business advisory council in February amid pressure from activists and employees who opposed the administration’s immigration policies. The White House said Sunday that Trump’s remarks condemning violence at a white nationalist rally were meant to include the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi groups. Democrats and Republicans criticized Trump for waiting too long to address the violence - his first major domestic crisis as president - and for failing when he did speak out to explicitly condemn white-supremacist marchers who ignited the melee. Trump on Saturday initially denounced what he called “this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides.” On Sunday, however, the White House added: “The president said very strongly in his statement yesterday that he condemns all forms of violence, bigotry, and hatred, and of course that includes white supremacists, KKK, neo-Nazi, and all extremist groups. He called for national unity and bringing all Americans together.”

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Teacher Receives Pushback After She Compared a ’Build the Wall’ Shirt to a Swastika - Breitbart

A Washington state middle school teacher received a lot of heat for her decision to pull aside a student wearing a “Build the Wall” . [The Chinook Middle School language arts teacher, after pulling the student aside, compared the shirt’s message to wearing a swastika, the Herald reported. “She asked, ‘How would you feel if someone wore a with a swastika on it?’ ” the student’s mother, Michelle Fischer, told the Herald. “He said, ‘You can’t compare my shirt to wearing a swastika. They aren’t the same thing.’ ” Fischer said the teacher asked her son Jack to stay in her class during lunch to talk about the shirt and told him that it wasn’t appropriate to wear clothing with a political message. Jack responded to the teacher that he saw a math teacher wearing a shirt with Barack Obama on it. Fischer posted her outrage over the teacher’s handling of the situation on Facebook and it went viral, especially after conservative talk show host Sean Hannity shared it to his 2. 8 million followers. Fischer is hoping that her son’s experience makes it easier for other children to speak up about political bullying. “It does happen,” said Michelle Fischer. “I think (politics) should be taught in our schools, but only in a positive way. ” Jack told her that the teacher had appeared opposed to Donald Trump since the beginning of the school year because of how she handled class discussions of the presidential election and the candidates. Fischer spoke with Chinook’s principal, Kevin Pierce, who said there was nothing wrong with the shirt. School district officials said appropriate action was taken against the teacher, but could not release details on personnel matters. The district said students are allowed to express their opinions so long as it doesn’t disrupt the education of others. “I think most parents would agree with me,” Fischer said. “If this was the other way around, I guarantee there would be some parents that were pretty upset. ” Students at other high schools around the country have also been harassed by school officials for wearing clothing in support of Trump. A student at a high school in South Portland, Oregon was harassed by school officials because he wore a hat with Trump’s campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again” in April 2016.

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How Can Communities Prepare for Mass Shootings? Orlando Offers Lessons - The New York Times

ORLANDO, Fla. — As doctors treated the horrific injuries of victims shot in the Pulse nightclub massacre here, a mistaken report of a gunman nearby forced officials to briefly lock down the emergency room the medical staff shoved heavy machines against the doors, creating a makeshift barricade in a treatment bay. Emergency room physicians ran low on tubes needed to reinflate the lungs of patients shot in the chest. The doctors scrambled to make sense of gunshot wounds because paramedics had rushed victims in with no time to assess their conditions. The hospital’s emergency preparedness manager, asleep at home, received an urgent email but did not respond until awakened by text. But of the 44 patients brought to Orlando Regional Medical Center with gunshot wounds in the early hours of June 12, 35 survived. The Pulse nightclub massacre has put Orlando on a growing roster of places — Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Newtown, Paris, San Bernardino — forced to confront attacks with injuries comparable to those in war zones. More will become clear over time, but Orlando’s response is already beginning to provide lessons on the challenges, large and small, of dealing with mass shootings, as well as what went right and what went wrong, what can be anticipated and what cannot. And it is raising hard questions about how to act when medical priorities and law enforcement ones can seem to be at odds. Across the nation, and the world, the realization that mass killings are the new normal has been gradually sinking in. On Friday, the National Academy of Medicine in Washington published a discussion paper — titled “Health and Medical Response to Active Shooter and Bombing Events” — that details best practices to help communities become better prepared. It warns that many are ill equipped for a “surge in major trauma cases. ” Orlando, a major tourist destination, had worked hard to prepare. In March, Orlando Regional Medical Center, the only major trauma center in Central Florida, staged a realistic, “active shooter scenario” simulating a school massacre that had left 500 wounded. Fifty agencies, including the F. B. I. participated in the exercise. High school students in ghastly makeup flooded 15 hospitals. The Pulse shooting — which killed 49 and wounded 53 — turned the March drill into a reality for scores of doctors, nurses, hospital administrators, paramedics and pathologists. Wrenching questions remain: Could more lives have been saved if the police had stormed the nightclub earlier? Did terrified victims bleed to death waiting for help to arrive? The Orlando experience validated what experts in emergency medicine had long known: The faster victims can reach the hospital, the more likely they are to survive. Of the 49 victims, just nine died in the trauma center — and they died minutes after arriving, hospital officials said, which suggests they had been mortally wounded. The Pulse survivors owe their lives in part to a grim coincidence: The trauma center is just a few blocks from the nightclub. Given that, Orlando may not be a perfect model for what could happen elsewhere. “Because of the proximity, we felt that more lives had been saved than if it were anywhere else,” said Eric Alberts, the hospital’s emergency preparedness manager. Mr. Alberts, 39, who previously ran emergency operations at Disney World, said the active shooter drill in March, which he organized, had proved “very similar” to the Pulse massacre. Even so, said Dr. William S. Havron, a trauma surgeon who spent the night operating on victims, “I don’t think anybody can ever be fully prepared for something like this. ” Dr. Chris Hunter, an emergency room physician and the director of the health services department for Orange County, Fla. which includes Orlando, was on an overnight shift at a hospital 20 miles away when he received a text that thrust him into supervising the response. He made a fast decision: Orlando Regional Medical Center was going to Status Black. That designation meant the trauma center’s emergency room would be closed to all but the shooting victims and others with serious injuries. People with sprains, sore throats or earaches would be sent elsewhere. “We never do that,” Dr. Hunter said. Outside Pulse, about 80 paramedics were furiously trying to cope with the carnage. Working with two cellphones and a radio because he could not leave his nighttime post, Dr. Hunter tried to track the paramedics to let the emergency room know when the next patients would arrive. ambulances were making round trips. Paramedics usually radio ahead to the emergency room with each patient’s condition so doctors can prepare. But at Pulse, there was not always time for that. And the police and bystanders were also driving victims to the hospital. “It was great for the patients, but hard on the staff,” said Dr. Gary A. Parrish, the director of the emergency department. Dr. Havron, the trauma surgeon, had just drifted off to sleep after feeding his son when he received the call. When he arrived at the emergency room, he could not enter it was locked down with the mistaken report of a gunman. He called a colleague, who told him to go upstairs to the operating room. Dr. Havron performed six operations that night. Experts know that good communication is critical in managing a crisis. But as more patients arrived, many unconscious and without identification, Mr. Alberts, the emergency preparedness manager, missed his first alert about the Pulse shooting, an email at 2:21 a. m. he was at home asleep. “That was one of the glitches we found that didn’t really work too well,” he said. It was not until 3:42 a. m. that he was awakened by a text from his boss. On Mr. Alberts’s orders, the hospital activated an emergency plan, moving patients around to make room for victims in the intensive care unit. Supervising the response from a command center, he confronted other challenges, not life or death, but still vexing. A donor sent 50 pizzas Mr. Alberts had them thrown out, fearing a terrorist’s poison. Foreign consuls showed up, demanding a list of patients’ names that could not legally be released he politely referred the consuls to the State Department. Digital fingerprinting failed to identify an unconscious patient an inkpad worked. Casualties came to the hospital that night in two waves, the first around 2 a. m. shortly after the shooting started. The second wave, victims who had been trapped in the club with the gunman, arrived around 5 a. m. after the police had blasted through a wall in the club and killed him. Dr. Havron and five other trauma surgeons at the hospital performed 28 operations that night. Of the 44 patients brought to the trauma center, eight died in the emergency room within minutes of their arrival, another died on the way to the operating room and 35 were admitted. As of Sunday, four remained in critical condition. “Everybody that made it to the operating room is still alive,” Dr. Havron said. But Dr. Jay Falk, the academic chairman of emergency medicine at the trauma center, warned that if there had been twice as many casualties, they might have overwhelmed the system. This is a problem the hospital will have to address, he said, adding, “We have to rethink that. ” Across town, at Florida Hospital Orlando, victims with less serious injuries began arriving around 3 a. m. Eventually there would be 12 of them. Most had been shot in the arms or the legs one had been trampled. The patients were awake and stable, and F. B. I. agents were eager to question them. Lorinda Stahley, the nurse manager for the emergency department, approached the victims gingerly. But, she said, “They were all ready and willing to be interviewed. ” Four needed surgery. Dr. Brian Vickaryous, an orthopedist and former Army surgeon who operated on combat injuries in Iraq, performed the operations. Each bullet he pulled out went to the F. B. I. Angel Santiago, 32, of Philadelphia, was one of his patients. Mr. Santiago had been trapped in a bathroom in the club, lying in a pool of blood. He had been shot in the legs he could see a bullet hole in the chest of his friend, who was sweating profusely. The two grew weaker as they waited, desperately, for the police to arrive. “By the time I got to the hospital, they said my blood pressure was very low,” Mr. Santiago said. “I was dizzy, cold they gave me two units of blood to try to stabilize me. ” He later learned that his friend, sent to another hospital — presumably Orlando Regional Medical Center — was in critical condition. He survived. Of the 50 who died, including the gunman, 39 died inside the club. Two more were found on the street outside. Those numbers, along with accounts like Mr. Santiago’s, raise agonizing questions about whether more lives could have been saved if the standoff had ended sooner, and whether some victims had bled slowly to death. Dr. Vickaryous, like many medical professionals here, did not want to law enforcement. “We have a saying in medicine: ‘The is . ’” he said. The dead were brought to the Orange County morgue, which upgraded its capacity in 2010 to store as many as 150 bodies, with a plane crash or a tornado in mind. Dr. Joshua D. Stephany, the county medical examiner, supervised the autopsies and performed some himself. “I don’t think anyone had prolonged suffering,” he said in an interview. Autopsy reports could help explain how victims died, by describing the wounds. But no details have been released because the investigation is in progress. Analysis of bullets like the ones Dr. Vickaryous removed from victims may eventually answer another difficult question: whether some people were caught in the crossfire and shot by the police, said Dr. Jan Garavaglia, Dr. Stephany’s predecessor. The response to the massacre is already generating debate in academia. Dr. Irwin Redlener, the director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University, said there was little doubt that more of the injured would have survived if they had been rescued sooner. But he also urged against judging the police, because the gunman had boasted that he had bombs and accomplices. Both claims were lies, but no one could be sure at first. As to whether victims had died quickly or suffered, it depends on where the bullets hit, Dr. Redlener said. Here in Orlando, officials are just beginning to evaluate their response, even as they continue to care for patients, plan funerals and tend to their own emotional trauma. Mr. Alberts, the emergency preparedness manager, has had two debriefings with his medical team. At the Orlando Fire Department, Chief Roderick S. Williams, who supervised many of the paramedics first on the scene, is planning to “tell others our lessons learned. ” Fire chiefs from New York Aurora, Colo. and Boston — cities that have also confronted traumas — have already reached out to share their information. “As the next city to experience a horrific event like this,” Chief Williams said, “we have to pay it forward. ”

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Flash-Mob Meditations To Occur At Voting Stations During Election

By Lance Schuttler On November 8th, 2016, hundreds and possibly thousands flash-mob meditations will commence at the polling stations everywhere across America. Elevate The Vote says that “this is a non-partisan participatory event that is open to everyone. It’s about the fundamental unity of human life that seems to have been so forgotten in this campaign.” The intention is to “elevate the consciousness of every U.S. voter on election day, impacting how we feel about ourselves, politics, this election, and each other.” “Meditation gives you an opportunity to come to know your invisible self. It allows you to empty yourself of the endless hyperactivity of your mind, and to attain calmness. It teaches you to be peaceful, to remove stress, to receive answers where confusion previously reigned.” Dr. Wayne Dyer While many will love this concept, some may be a bit skeptical of it having any effect. With that, we can look further at the studies that have been done on synchronized meditations and the measurable effects they did create. What is known as the Maharishi Effect has actually been studied over 600 times, which was conducted in 33 countries and in over 250 independent research institutions. The evidence overwhelmingly correlates synchronized group prayer and meditation having extremely positive social, political and economic benefits to the world. Positive correlations for numerous health benefits to the individual were also observed and confirmed. The most well-known study on this effect was done in 1974, which observed three different gatherings of over 7,000 people meditating each morning and evening for three consecutive weeks. The study took place in Fairfield, Iowa (December 17, 1983-January 6, 1984), The Hague, Holland (December 21, 1984-January 13, 1985) and Washington, DC (July 1-July 10, 1985). The results were astounding. According to the Rand Corporation, a think-tank based in California, “acts of global terrorism resulting in fatalities and injuries were reduced by 72%.” Time series analysis was used in this study to rule out possibilities that the reduction in global terrorism was caused by pre-existing trends, drifts in data or cycles. But how was this done then? How did it spread from a small group to a larger one? Scientists believe this is due to a coherent resonance being created in the Unified Quantum Field by those meditating. Going a bit further with it, we can think of a laser. Its coherent light is established by what is known in physics as the Field Effect. The Field Effect’s principle, according to the Institute of Science, Technology and Public Policy is “that it is not necessary to act individually on each individual constituent of a system, but that the system can be handled in one stroke at the collective level.” The 7,000 people meditating created a Field Effect of harmonious coherence that spread throughout the collective–which in turn helped to reduce acts of terrorism (incoherent, disruptive energy). Synchronized meditation shifts events and timelines in our Quantum Universe. Souce If you live outside of the U.S. you can also join in by meditating with a global synchronized meditation that begins at 3pm Pacific Time (U.S.). Also, you can add to this movement even if you live in the U.S. by meditating at this time or at a local polling station. If you plan not to vote or already voted, you can also stay at home and meditate that evening. Let us all envision a world at peace, ourselves at peace and all social systems in balance and at peace. To find out more information about the flash-mob meditations and to see or start one in your local area, visit Elevate The Vote . Lance Schuttler graduated from the University of Iowa with a degree in Health Science and practices health coaching through his website Orgonlight Health . You can follow the Orgonlight Health facebook page or visit the website for more information on how to receive health coaching for yourself, a family member or a friend as well as view other inspiring articles. Featured Image Source Source: The Mind Unleashed

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BREAKING: Leaked DHS Memo Tells Of Obama’s Plan To Defy Federal Court On Amnesty

Let s face it, we have a president who s going rogue and defying the rule of law at every turn. This is not your mama s lame duck presidency, but a stealth effort to do everything possible to push the agenda at all costs. The big question is that if Obama continues to defy the rule of law like this, shouldn t Congress finally take action against him? Who ll stand up? I ve got a pen and I ve got a phone. And I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions King Obama A newly leaked internal DHS memorandum produced for an off-the-record agency conclave reveals that the Obama administration is actively planning to circumvent a federal court injunction that suspended part of last November s deferral-based amnesty initiative. The document, apparently prepared as follow-up from a DHS Regulations Retreat last summer, appears sure to re-ignite concerns in Congress as well as federal judges in the Fifth Circuit. The Administration has already been criticized from the bench for handing out work permits to hundreds of thousands of deferred action beneficiaries, in direct violation of a district court s order. With the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals deciding any day now whether to deny the Administration s request to reverse that injunction, this public leak has come at a critical juncture for U.S. enforcement policy. Last June, four months after Texas federal judge Andrew Hanen s order to freeze President s DAPA and Expanded DACA programs disclosure: the Immigration Reform Law Institute has filed briefs in these cases DHS s immigration policy makers apparently held a Regulations Retreat to discuss different options for open market Employment Authorization Document (EAD) regulatory changes. EAD is the statutory term for work permits. From a memo recording these discussions, we now know that the Obama DHS has, rather than pausing to allow the courts to assess the constitutionality of its enforcement nullification initiatives, been gearing up to roll out one or more of four plans drawn up at the meeting, each one designed to provide EADs to millions of nonimmigrants, including those lawfully present and visa overstayers, crippling the actual employment-based visa system on the federal statute-book. Read more: The Hill

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New Study Proves America Keeps Getting Better And Better Under Obama

The cornerstone of Donald Trump s presidential campaign can be summed up in just a few words: Things suck and it s all Obama s fault. For Trump, this tweet pretty much optimizes his take on poverty:Our country does not feel great already to the millions of wonderful people living in poverty, violence and despair. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 28, 2016This was in response to President Obama saying during the Democratic National Convention that America is already great. So, who is correct? Are Americans trapped in a socioeconomic hell hole or are things far more optimistic? According to a study published by the New York Times, things are vastly better for Americans than they were when Obama took office in 2009.The article began by profiling Alex Caicedo of Gaithersburg, MD. A few years ago, Caicedo was struggling with odd and part time jobs. He and his family were forced to live with his mother-in-law. Today, he has a steady middle class job with benefits and the family is ready to move out of his mother-in-law s home. They are far from alone.The Caicedos are among the 3.5 million Americans who were able to raise their chins above the poverty line last year, according to census data released this month. More than seven years after the recession ended, employers are finally being compelled to reach deeper into the pools of untapped labor, creating more jobs, especially among retailers, restaurants and hotels, and paying higher wages to attract workers and meet new minimum wage requirements.What about the minorities, who, according to Trump, have never had it worse? Well, that s another Trump lie. Not only have minorities suffered much, much worse throughout history (slavery, Jim Crow), but they too have it dramatically better since Obama took office.Poverty declined among every group. But African-Americans and Hispanics who account for more than 45 percent of those below the poverty line of $24,300 for a family of four in most states experienced the largest improvement.Sorry, Republicans, but you don t get an ounce of credit for the improvements. If anything, things would be much better if Republicans weren t in office. The Times credits social programs like Social Security and food stamps for keeping people out of poverty. They also credit the fall in oil prices for people being able to commute to their jobs. One major factor, and Republicans will hate this, is that the increases in minimum wage are also taking people out of poverty.After a long period of rising inequality, Elise Gould, an economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute in Washington, added, the benefits of the improving economy finally began to seep downward. Wage increases were even stronger at the bottom than in the middle, she said.Still, it s not enough. 43 million Americans still live in poverty. Republicans have successfully blocked poor people from acquiring college degrees or job training that might help raise people out of poverty. For those without access to computers or the internet, finding a job can be burdensome. For those who can t afford cars, a job search can be impossible.If this proves anything, it should be that it s time to continue successful Democratic policies, not cut them off at the knees, as Republicans would do.Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

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In Consideration of the Supreme Importance of Love

By Les Visible on November 4, 2016 Visible Origami — Nov 4, 2016 Dog Poet Transmitting……. Welcome to Origami my dear friends. This is the number 779 posting at this blog. I don’t know what that means but it’s a lot of posts. We hope that some of them will have been of value to you. We like to talk about Love a great deal here. We spent decades studying in the Hermetic and Occult Sciences where abstruse concepts and complex schematics are the general nature of the various systems that exist in these areas of inquiry. I used to have some facility with them. I could talk about them in a knowledgeable way. Whether I actually had any real and useful knowledge is another thing. At least I could talk about these subjects as if I knew what I was talking about. Time went by and it became more and more apparent to me that knowing a great deal about certain subjects did not necessarily convey a power of operation in them. I studied palmistry for some time. I knew what all the lines and mounts, digits and bracelets and sundry meant. I knew which hand meant whatever it meant in relation to the other hand but… what I did not have was the single most important element. I did not have the intuitive feed. I studied the Tarot and esoteric astrology and various systems of mind control that hearkened back to earlier times. I studied a lot of things because I had a real thirst for arcane information but I lacked the intuitive feel in all of them except esoteric astrology and in the matter of the Tarot I did have some amount of facility in the areas where fortune telling was not a consideration. I always felt that using the Tarot for fortune telling was unfortunate behavior. Not only did it make you dependent on a method that, except in very rare circumstances, proved to be both deceptive and inefficient but… why seek to read the future when you could change the future? Meditation on the Tarot archetypes will transform your mental state and the very construction of it. This meditation will awaken the archetypes in you so that they resonate in your being with the world external to you. This doesn’t mean difficult conditions will not come upon you. What it means is that you will be on a shorter and faster track to illumination of some kind; we won’t be going into that today. I studied and I studied and I studied and I learned to parse and debate and state, within the parameters of the science and even in a comparative sense with other sciences but I didn’t know anything of value in the sense that I could apply what I had learned to real time accomplishments and achievements in the manifest in a supernatural manner. Sure, this kind of thing happens on a regular basis in my life but not because I have anything to do with it. All of this takes me back to the words of The Preacher in Ecclesiastes; “vanity, all is vanity,” and “there is nothing new under the sun.” It has taken me more years than I wish it had, to learn that only Love is worth the pursuit of it and the Love of the Ineffable is the greatest Love of all. Nothing that I have learned in all of the mystery sciences is the equal of this understanding, nor do any of them have anywhere near the value of it. Here is what I have learned, Love God. I am not speaking in a religions sense because in these times you can’t swing a dead cat in a condo closet without hitting a false prophet. False prophets come in all sizes. They are not all the equal of the Anti-Christ, whoever that might be, like The Pasto and the Anti-Pasto. A false prophet is anyone who manipulates the emotional and mental bodies of their fellows for personal gain, even if that gain is only influence, influence of this kind usually transforms into personal profit on some level. It might be material gain. It might be sexual favors. It might be psychopathic gratification of some kind and it can take place in a small country church just as easily as in a mega church or a massive television ministry. The Aquarian Age is upon us and as a result, all of the long entrenched and much- changed over time- religions are on their way out. The collective faith of humanity is being shaken to its roots and the old ways are passing away. This does not mean that the true teachings of the true teachers will pass away but they will be presented in a new light that is relative to the needs of a new age. The Aquarian Age is supposed to be The Age of Brotherhood and that tells me that the avatar will appear in the collective human heart, where a place has been prepared for it. It will not appear where the false self is occupying the space necessary for the indwelling divine to reside. One does not need to be a follower or practitioner of any particular dogma or form of ritual. One needs only to Love the divine who is one’s own higher self and the reason for this is that that higher self will draw our true self up into its aura of influence, or rather reveal itself to is as our true self. We are all divinity in the process of discovery and unfoldment and Love is the means and the mechanism that can accomplish this. As we reject and expel all of what is false and extraneous in ourselves, we make room for the indwelling divine. Once we have driven all of it out of ourselves, the divine will come forth in our hearts and reign over all things from the throne room within. I have no further use or need for occult information. I am not in the market for anything that is on the market. I can be very glib about some of these things because of a very good memory and an analytic mind that has not lost its objectivity and which doesn’t play favorites in terms of what I want people to think, that is their area of authority and has nothing to do with me but… all the glibness and capacity for articulation in the world is not going to serve the deeper needs of humanity. It might gain you followers and it might get you on some talk circuit and book signing tours and you can lecture to your heart’s content at New Age conventions and seminars and you’ll just be one more Tom Fool among all the rest of the Gleem smiling androids, who pander to the gullible the world over. It will, guaranteed, also get you in the kind of trouble for which I will run long distances to avoid. Put yourself on a pedestal or allow others to do it for you and you might as well paint a target on your back at the same time. The divine and his angels and emissaries see all of this. They see every montebank and charlatan. They see into every sincere and corrupt heart and judgments are passed concerning what phases and states you will be taken through to wake you the Hell up. I would prefer to sidestep the hard massage of Karma upon my being. Love the ineffable and everything else will take care of itself. Love the ineffable with all the intensity that you can muster and your intensity will grow and grow; “success is speedy for the energetic.” God is watching. We need to get into a fluid and continuous mindset of certitude concerning this. We need to remind ourselves through every day that God is watching. God is looking at the world through our very own eyes. We may have convinced ourselves that we alone are seeing and that we alone have access to our mind and heart but this is assuredly not the case. God is everywhere, after one fashion or another. When one has brought their heart and mind to the assurance of the endless presence of God in our being and all around us and yet magically and mystically apart as well, then we will begin to resonate with that ubiquitous presence and it will move through us in an active expression of itself. There was a saint, named St Denis , who is the patron saint of Paris. They cut off his head and he picked it up and put it under his arm and walked off with it. Do I believe this happened in the exact details given? I don’t know. What I do know is that there have been many similar stories. One similar is to be found in Autobiography of a Yogi. Look into the tales that are recorded concerning Appolonius of Tyana (the links will take you to a fuller study of his life) and many, many another unusual character, who has walked among us here over the ages. Some of them had a vast reservoir of occult knowledge and some of them were in possession of divine Love. Some had both. I would prefer to be one of those who carries the love of God in my heart and I want for nothing more. I don’t need to know all of these complexities and these complexities go on and on forever. There are just so many of them. If you have ever looked into Tantra then you have some idea of how intricate the complexities can be. I am not equal to the possession of such information. As fine a mind as I have I am a simple fellow and I can get into trouble very quickly when I get out of my depth and I have no desire to test those waters. So I say to you all, seek the source of all knowledge worth having. Seek the reservoir of immeasurable Love. Seek the source of every good and righteous thing and Love it with all the force that is possible for you and anything you do need to know will be given to you at the time you need it. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all else will be added unto you.” End Transmission…….

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Trump to get a range of options to curb steel imports: senators

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Thursday he will present to President Donald Trump a range of options to restrict steel imports on national security grounds, according to senators who met with Ross. Senator Sherrod Brown said that Ross “pretty much committed” to announcing these options next week as part of Commerce’s review of whether steel imports are threatening U.S. national security under a 1962 trade law. But Ross, speaking to reporters following a closed-door meeting with Senate Finance Committee members, declined to put a time frame on the review’s release. “It’ll come out when it’s ready to come out,” he said. The 79-year-old former steel industry magnate said he spoke to senators about the broad outlines of the “Section 232” probe, including its legal basis and objectives, “the potential tools for accomplishing those objectives, what are the risks involved in the process.” Ross did not provide any details on specific recommendations to Trump, saying the purpose of the meeting was to provide senators “with some background within which they can judge their reaction to the report when it comes out.” Trump told reporters on his flight to France that he was considering both tariffs and quotas to stop foreign countries from dumping steel into the U.S. market and “destroying” the U.S. steel industry. The release of his remarks sent steel stocks soaring on Thursday. “The options are everything,” said Brown, a Democrat from a major steel-producing state. “I pushed him to move quickly on this. I want it to be strong. I want it to be long lasting, and I want it to address the overhanging issue of Chinese steel overcapacity.” While steelmakers and workers argue that protections are needed to put the industry on a healthy footing, steel users say that import curbs would raise steel prices, putting them at a disadvantage to foreign competitors. Senator Ron Wyden, the Finance Committee’s top Democrat, said some members tried to convey to Ross that using the Cold War-era trade law to restrict imports of steel on defense grounds was “not an enduring solution” to the steel production glut. “The secretary feels confident that his approach is going to make all sides happy in the steel industry,” Wyden said. In 2001, Commerce investigated the national security impact of iron ore and semifinished steel imports but recommended no action.

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Report: House Intel Committee to See ’Smoking Gun’ Evidence Obama Admin Spied on Trump Team - Breitbart

James Rosen of Fox News reports that Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee will be presented with “smoking gun” evidence that “the Obama administration, in its closing days, was using the cover of legitimate surveillance on foreign targets to spy on Trump. ”[According to the source for Rosen’s report, this evidence will come from the National Security Agency, which is supposed to produce documents for the House Intelligence Committee by Friday. It is expected to take a week or so for congressional investigators to assess these materials. The NSA material is said to be even more compelling than the evidence that prompted committee chairman Devin Nunes ( ) to announce on Wednesday that “incidental” surveillance of the Trump transition team was conducted by the intelligence community. Rosen’s report has a few more interesting developments in the aftermath of Nunes’ announcement: Because Nunes’s intelligence came from multiple sources during a span of several weeks, and he has not shared the actual materials with his committee colleagues, he will be the only member of the panel in a position to know whether the NSA has turned over some or all of the intelligence he is citing. However, Fox News was told Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Rep. Adam Schiff, . had been briefed on the basic contents of the intelligence described by Nunes. CIA Director Mike Pompeo is also sympathetic to the effort to determine, with documentary evidence, the extent of any alleged Obama administration spying on the Trump team, sources said. Because so much criticism has been leveled at the media for basing reports hostile to the Trump administration on anonymous sources of uncertain motivation, it should be duly noted that the Fox News report relies heavily upon a single source, without a single clue to this person’s identity or position. It’s not clear if this individual is connected to the intelligence community, or to the House Intelligence Committee. The nature of the NSA’s “smoking gun” information is also left to the reader’s imagination. In fact, it’s described as “potential smoking gun” information. It should also be noted that on Thursday, a spokesperson for Nunes said the chairman is waiting to see “all the documents he requested” from intelligence agencies before he “knows for sure” what surveillance of the transition team or Trump was conducted. Perhaps the material coming from the NSA will positively establish which, if any, Trump transition team members were caught up in the “incidental surveillance” Nunes described on Wednesday. An unnamed intelligence official speculated to ABC News that surveillance on foreign officials might have caught them “talking about Trump transition team members, as opposed to transition team members participating directly in the communications. ” The NSA would seem to be the agency most likely to possess documentation resolving that question.

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DONALD TRUMP JR. Releases Emails Related To Russian Lawyer Meeting…Here Are The Nothing Burger Emails The Media Was Salivating Over

Donald Trump Jr. took to Twitter today to release all email communication with the Kremlin-linked lawyer, revealing that he had hoped to get his hands on information that would damage Hillary Clinton s campaign. Is this really news? Someone who Donald Trump Jr. knew wanted to help him, by revealing some dirt on Hillary, and Trump Jr. agreed to meet with them. Okay? So what? Would Hillary s camp have declined such a meeting? What about Robert Creamer, a felon and Democrat operative who s married to a US Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky of Illinois and had ties to the Hillary campaign and to our sitting President Barack Obama? He was caught red-handed in an undercover video by James O Keefe admitting to inciting violence at Trump rallies as a way to help Hillary win the election against Donald Trump? Why was that story dismissed by the media and this nothingburger story getting wall-to-wall coverage?Here is the tweet from Donald Trump Jr., who was clearly not worried about revealing the contents to the world. Here's my statement and the full email chain pic.twitter.com/x050r5n5LQ Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) July 11, 2017Here is the statement made by Donald Trump Jr. about the release of the emails:Page 1:Page 2:Page 3:Page 4:The emails offer the first details about how the sitdown with Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Kremlin-linked Russian lawyer, came about.Trump Jr. posted the emails on Twitter shortly after they were first reported by The New York Times.Trump Jr. said in a statement he thought he was receiving opposition research. The information they suggested they had about Hillary Clinton I thought was Political Opposition Research, Trump Jr. said. Throughout the exchange, he gave no indication that he was concerned about getting information from the Russian government, which the US intelligence community has concluded meddled in the election on his father s behalf.Trump Jr. and his high-powered white collar criminal defense lawyer, Alan Futerfas, insist he did nothing wrong. Media & Dems are extremely invested in the Russia story. If this nonsense meeting is all they have after a yr, I understand the desperation! he defiantly tweeted Tuesday morning.The White House has said President Trump was unaware of the meeting, and he has not commented on the revelations about his eldest son. NYPNot only do the emails appear to be another nothingburger for the rabid left and their allies in the media, but Donald Jr. should ve known that if the media didn t care about Hillary giving Russia one-fifth of all uranium production in the Untied States in exchange for donations to the Clinton Foundation (slush fund), they likely wouldn t care much else having to do with Crooked Hillary and the Russians.An April, 2015 article published by The New York Times tells a story of a corrupt Secretary of State who used her position as Secretary of State to gain massive donations to her Clinton Foundation while giving Vladimir Putin control of much of the United States uranium:The headline on the website Pravda trumpeted President Vladimir V. Putin s latest coup, its nationalistic fervor recalling an era when its precursor served as the official mouthpiece of the Kremlin: Russian Nuclear Energy Conquers the World. The article, in January 2013, detailed how the Russian atomic energy agency, Rosatom, had taken over a Canadian company with uranium-mining stakes stretching from Central Asia to the American West. The deal made Rosatom one of the world s largest uranium producers and brought Mr. Putin closer to his goal of controlling much of the global uranium supply chain.But the untold story behind that story is one that involves not just the Russian president, but also a former American president and a woman who would like to be the next one.At the heart of the tale are several men, leaders of the Canadian mining industry, who have been major donors to the charitable endeavors of former President Bill Clinton and his family. Members of that group built, financed and eventually sold off to the Russians a company that would become known as Uranium One.As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013, Canadian records show, a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation. Uranium One s chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million. Those contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons, despite an agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors. Other people with ties to the company made donations as well.And shortly after the Russians announced their intention to acquire a majority stake in Uranium One, Mr. Clinton received $500,000 for a Moscow speech from a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock.

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What Is At Stake In The Election — Paul Craig Roberts

What Is At Stake In The Election Paul Craig Roberts Here Are The Presstitutes Who Control American’s Minds: http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/2016/10/26/1010359-65-us-journalists-at-a-private-dinner-with-hillary-clintons-team-and-john-podesta/ I just heard an NPR presstitute delare that Texas, a traditional sure thing for Republicans was up for grabs in the presidential election. Little wonder if this report on Zero Hedge is correct. Apparently, the voting machines are already at work stealing the election for Killary. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-25/texas-rigged-first-reports-voting-machines-switching-votes-hillary-texas From my long experience in journalism, I know the American public is not very sharp. Nevertheless, it is difficult for me to believe that Americans, whose jobs, careers, and the same for their children and grandchildren, have been sold out by the elites who Hillary represents would actually vote for her. It makes no sense. If this were the case, how did Trump get the Republican nomination despite the vicious presstitute campaign against him? It seems obvious that the majority of Americans who have been suffering terribly at the hands of the One Percent who own Hillary lock, stock, and barrel, will not vote for the people who have ruined their lives and the lives of their children and grandchildren. Furthermore, if Trump’s election is as impossible as the presstitutes tell us—Hillary’s win is 93% certain according to the latest presstitute pronouncement—the vicious 24/7 attacks on Trump would be pointless. Wouldn’t they? Why the constant, frenetic, vicious attacks on a person who has no chance? There are reports that a company associated with Hillary backer George Soros is supplying the voting machines to 16 states, including states that determine election outcomes. I do not know that these reports are correct. However, I do know for a fact that the oligarchic interests that rule America are opposed to Trump being elected President for the simple reason that they are unsure that they would be able to control him. It is hard to believe that dispossessed Americans will vote for Hillary, the representative of those who have dispossessed them, when Trump says he will re-empower the dispossessed. Hillary has denigrated ordinary Americans who, she says, she is so removed from by her wealth that she doesn’t even know who they are. Clearly, Hillary, paid $675,000 by Goldman Sachs for three 20-minute speeches, is not a representative of the people. She represents the One Percent whose policies have flushed the prospects of ordinary Americans down the toilet. What is really disturbing is the pretense by the presstitute scum that Trump’s lewd admiration for female charms is deemed more important than the prospect of nuclear war. At no time during the presidential primaries or during the current presidential campaign has it been mentioned that Russia is being assaulted daily by propaganda, threatened by military buildups, and being convinced that the United States and its European vassals are planning an attack. A threatened Russia, made insecure by inexplicable hostility and Western propaganda, is a danger manufactured by the neoconservative supporters of Hillary Clinton. If the American people are really so unbelievably stupid that they think lewd remarks about women are more important than avoiding nuclear war, the American people are too stupid to exist. They will deserve the mushroom clouds that will wipe them and everyone else off the face of the earth. Donald Trump is the only candidate in the primaries and the general election who has said that he sees no point in conflict with Russia when Putin has shown nothing but desire to work things out to mutual advantage. In contrast, Hillary has declared the thrice-elected president of Russia to be “the new Hitler” and has threatened Russia with military action. Hillary talks openly about regime change in Russia. Surely, in a free media at least one person in the print and TV media would raise this most important of all points. But where have you seen it? Only in my columns and a few others in the alternative media. In other words, we are about to have an election in which the important issue has played no role. And yet allegedly we are the exceptional, indispensable people, a people’s democracy protected by a free press. In truth, this mythical description of America is merely a cloak for the rule of the Oligarchs. And the Oligarchs are risking life on earth for their continual supremacy. The post What Is At Stake In The Election — Paul Craig Roberts appeared first on PaulCraigRoberts.org .

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Watch Malcolm Nance WIPE THE FLOOR With Breitbart Editor In Bill Maher’s Overtime

The bright side of the Russian/Trump investigation, if you can find one, is that a lot of political stars are being born. Al Franken, while not a newbie to most, is separating himself from the chaff, as are Adam Schiff, Kamala Harris and a handful of other Democrats. One major rising star, though, isn t a Democrat at all he s a former counter-intelligence officer. He considers himself a Colin Powell Republican and if he were to run for President, there s little doubt he d be a force to be reckoned with, regardless of party.After Friday night s Overtime with Bill Maher (the part of the show that s on YouTube instead of on TV), Nance confirmed his badass status when he stood up to Breitbart Editor in Chief, Alex Marlow, demanding an apology for a story that ran a few years ago that resulted in death threats to Nance and his family.On the subject of fake news, which Marlow tried to redefine as a liberal invention, Nance said this: There was this article about a 35-year counterterrorism expert who claimed they wanted Trump Tower attacked that was written in Breitbart, Nance began. I got 31 death threats and that came from your website you gonna apologize to me? Marlow responded that he respected Nance and his service to the country, but Nance shot back by saying, Your followers threatened my family, my children, my wife. The Breitbart chief tried turning the tables. Are you really suggesting that Breitbart doesn t get death threats? That our lives aren t put in danger? Marlow claimed he didn t remember the story, but if Nance would show it to him, he d apologize. Apparently, Marlow hasn t heard of the Google.Nance responded that he will come to (his) office and see that retraction. Marlow then called Nance, who is incredibly calm, hysterical, which seems to be the go-to insult for anyone speaking out against the Trump administration.Here s the video:Featured image via video screenshots

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EU will cut some money for Turkey as ties sour

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union will cut some of the money earmarked for Turkey to join the bloc, reflecting increasingly sour ties with Ankara but stopping short of killing membership bid of the country it still sees as a strategic partner. The EU has been walking a tight rope for months on Turkey, angered by President Tayyip Erdogan s crackdown on critics after a failed coup in July, 2016, but dependant on Ankara to keep a lid on immigration to Europe and combat militants in Syria. The EU leaders chairman, Donald Tusk, said the bloc had agreed in two days of talks in Brussels to cut or reroute some of the 4.4 billion euros ($5.2 bln) Ankara was due to get as part of its accession talks in 2014-20. It was a substantive discussion. We want to keep the door open to Ankara, but the current reality in Turkey is making this difficult, Tusk told a news conference. Germany has seen its ties with Turkey particularly strained and Chancellor Angela Merkel called last month for a tougher stance on Ankara as she campaigned for re-election at home.

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Radio Derb Is On The Air–Leonardo And Brazil’s Miss Bum Bum Pageant, Etc.

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Hillary Just Personally Went On Twitter To DESTROY Trump’s Ridiculous Visit To Mexico (TWEET)

Donald Trump got to play make-believe on Wednesday afternoon as he went to Mexico to speak with President Enrique Pe a Nieto.Trump, who has absolutely no diplomatic experience whatsoever, apparently got cold feet when it came to his big, beautiful, great, wonderful, and spectacular wall he wants to build along the border between the United States and Mexico.It would seem the reality television star couldn t muster up the courage to demand Mexico to pay for it because Mexico s president said afterwards that he would never pay for the wall, and Trump, instead of saying that, decided to try to cover up the conversation by saying it never happened.Al inicio de la conversaci n con Donald Trump dej claro que M xico no pagar por el muro. Enrique Pe a Nieto (@EPN) August 31, 2016Translated, that says: At the beginning of the conversation with Donald Trump, I made clear that Mexico will not pay for the wall. Hillary Clinton, clearly getting a kick out of all of this, took to Twitter and personally tweeted out: Trump just failed his first foreign test. Diplomacy isn t as easy as it looks. -HTrump just failed his first foreign test. Diplomacy isn't as easy as it looks. -H Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 1, 2016Alongside this:A wall that Mexico will pay for: a bad idea from an even worse negotiator. pic.twitter.com/RZfOKe45RO Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 1, 2016No, being a diplomat isn t easy. It s not easy at all, in fact. One person who knows this all too well is former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who has traveled more than any other Secretary of State in the history of the republic. Her job was to be a diplomat at all times.So, if you want a person with the proper experience, you better vote for Hillary and not the schmuck who doesn t even have the cojones to tell the truth about what happened in a meeting.Featured Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images, Twitter

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Trump on Putin: 'we get along very, very well' - CBN interview

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Wednesday his lengthy meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit was a good sign and showed the two countries can work together on issues like the ceasefire in Syria where they share interests. In an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, Trump said: “I think we get along very, very well. We are a tremendously powerful nuclear power, and so are they. It doesn’t make sense not to have some kind of relationship.” The U.S. leader also took a dig at his Democratic campaign rival Hillary Clinton, saying Putin would have been much happier with her as president because she wouldn’t have spent as much on the U.S. military as he plans to.

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Polish lawmakers initially approve bill changing electoral system

WARSAW (Reuters) - Polish lawmakers from the ruling right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party initially approved on Friday a bill changing the electoral system that the opposition denounced as threatening the fairness of elections. The bill, which would replace all current members of a body responsible for conducting and overseeing elections, will now be sent to a parliamentary committee for further works.

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Muhammad Ali’s Son Detained At Airport Because His Name Sounds Too Muslim

Immigration officials in Florida proved how out of control things are in Trump s America by detaining the son of Muhammad Ali because his name happens to sound too Muslim for their liking.Muhammad Ali Jr. and his mother, Khalilah Camacho-Ali, were on their way home after speaking at a Black History Month event in Montego Bay, Jamaica. On Feb. 7, they flew into Fort Lauderdale, Florida. And then things took a disturbing turn.Chris Mancini, a lawyer and friend of the family says they were pulled to the side as they were going through customs. Khalilah Camacho-Ali was released when she pulled out a photo of her with the legendary boxer, but Muhammad Ali Jr. didn t have such a photo. Apparently, being related to a famous person would have meant more to officials than the fact that he s an American citizen with a U.S. passport to prove it.Ali Jr. was held by immigration officials and questioned for almost two hours. Where did you get your name from? they asked him over and over. When they asked him if he was a Muslim, he said yes, and that really set off alarm bells for officials. They continued to question him about his religion and repeatedly asked him where he was born. Just for the record, he was born in Philadelphia in 1971.USA Today reports:While Ali Jr. was detained, Camacho-Ali ran around the airport asking, Where s my son? and begging for help, according to Mancini. Because incidents involving customs officials are considered to be on federal soil, local police had no jurisdiction to help her. Ali Jr. was eventually released two hours later, and the family contacted Mancini the following day.They have both traveled all over the world and never, ever, have they been subjected to this kind of treatment, said Mancini. To the Ali family, it s crystal clear that this is directly linked to Mr. Trump s efforts to ban Muslims from the United States, he added. Imagine walking into an airport and being asked about your religion, he said. This is classic customs profiling. According to Mancini, the Ali family is debating whether or not to file a federal lawsuit and are searching for others who have been subjected to this kind of racial profiling and harassment.Featured image via Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images for the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson s Research

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CNN Segment Turns Into A Shouting Match As ‘Apprentice’ Alums Spar Over Trump (VIDEO)

To say that Donald Trump is a divisive figure is quite the understatement. His racism, sexism, xenophobia, and all-around assholery have been on full display ever since he announced that his candidacy for the GOP 2016 presidential nomination. At this point, even former contestants from his reality show, The Apprentice, have turned against him, and are saying so publicly. Three alumi from the show appeared on CNN in a segment with host Don Lemon on Friday night, and things quickly turned ugly, because two of the former contestants, both of whom are black men, were openly criticizing the business mogul, while a contestant who is a supporter also came on and expressed his support for Trump for president.Kwame Jackson and Randal Pinkett lit into Trump at the beginning of the segment, calling out his many frightening qualities and all the reasons he d make such a terrible president. Pinkett commented on the fact that while on the show, the contestants had no clue that Trump was such a bigoted extremist, saying: We ve seen the campaign evolve from when Donald announced and talked about Mexicans as rapists and criminals to what we ve seen more recently with the violence at his campaign rallies. We ve all grown increasingly concerned that the Donald we knew when we competed is not the Donald we know as a candidate. Pinkett continued on with his criticism, saying that while Trump continues to be the same bombastic personality that they came to know as their host on The Apprentice, that there s a side that has come out during his presidential campaign that they were unaware of before, saying, What we didn t see was how extreme his views have evolved as he has become a political candidate. That was when Jackson joined the fray and said what all sane people have been thinking, which is that We are bordering on the precipice of fascism. Andy Dean then spoke up as a Trump supporter, and insisted that nobody in Trump s camp is responsible for the violence at the rallies. He went on to accuse the former contestants of not being appreciative of Trump s putting them on his television show. Dean then pivoted to the go-to Trump talking point, which is that The Donald is a rich, successful businessman. Jackson, countered that remark and said, Being rich don t make you right, Andy. The thing is, Trump s supporters, be they the backwoods, ignorant types who act as if they couldn t pass an eighth grade civics class or the rich assholes like Andy Dean, seem to be completely oblivious to how dangerous Donald Trump really is. He s a racist, a sexist, a homophobe, a xenophobe, and really just an out and out fascist. That is the LAST thing this country needs, and his rise to the top is nothing short of terrifying to those of us who see what he is doing to the nation, even without so much as securing the GOP nomination.These contestants are right. Trump needs to go. Opportunities he gave them aside, they were right to say what they said.Watch this trainwreck of a segment below, via Raw Story and Mediate:https://youtu.be/fXqjEhNopCkFeatured image via video screen capture

1real

Trump Just Took To Twitter To Proudly Defend Open Bigotry (TWEET)

Most of the media is capitalizing off what Hillary Clinton said at a recent LGBT event that was held in New York City. Unlike a Donald Trump gaffe every other hour, Hillary said something that bordered on inappropriate, albeit completely honest. She said that half of Trump s supporters are a basket of deplorables. In other words, they need to be called out on their blatant bigotry.Hillary said: To just be grossly generalistic, you can put half of Trump supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that and he has lifted them up he tweets and retweets offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric. Hearing this from Hillary, Trump took this as a cue to defend the indefensible the racists themselves. And yes, they are blatantly racist. In fact, he even called them great Americans. Trump tweeted out: Hillary Clinton just had her 47% moment. What a terrible thing she said about so many great Americans! Hillary Clinton just had her 47% moment. What a terrible thing she said about so many great Americans! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 10, 2016Now, maybe Trump thinks that his racist supporters are great Americans, but to the rest of level-headed and non-racist America, they are bigots who are deplorable and worthy of condemnation.Featured image via Mark Wallheiser/Getty Images

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Larry Colburn, Who Helped Stop My Lai Massacre, Dies at 67 - The New York Times

Larry Colburn, who became an American hero when he intervened with two comrades to halt the massacre of unarmed Vietnamese civilians by United States soldiers in 1968, elevating an innocuous hamlet named My Lai into a watchword for the horrors of war, died on Tuesday at his home in Canton, Ga. He was 67. The cause was liver cancer, his wife, Lisa, said. Mr. Colburn was the last surviving member of a helicopter crew that was assigned to hover over My Lai on Saturday morning, March 16, 1968, to identify enemy positions by drawing Vietcong fire. Instead, the men encountered an eerie quiet and a macabre landscape of dead, wounded and weaponless women and children as a platoon of American soldiers, ostensibly hunting elusive Vietcong guerrillas, marauded among defenseless noncombatants. The crew dropped smoke flares to mark the wounded, “thinking the men on the ground would come assist them,” Mr. Colburn told Vietnam Magazine in 2011. “When we would come back to those we marked,” he said, “we’d find they were now dead. ” Audaciously and on his own initiative, the pilot, Chief Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson Jr. swooped down and landed the copter. “Mr. Thompson was just beside himself,” Mr. Colburn recalled in an interview in 2010 for the PBS program “The American Experience. ” “He got on the radio and just said, ‘This isn’t right, these are civilians, there’s people killing civilians down here.’ And that’s when he decided to intervene. He said, ‘We’ve got to do something about this, are you with me?’ And we said, ‘Yes.’ ” Mr. Thompson confronted the officer in command of the rampaging platoon, Lt. William L. Calley, but was rebuffed. He then positioned the helicopter between the troops and the surviving villagers and faced off against another lieutenant. Mr. Thompson ordered Mr. Colburn to fire his machine gun at any soldiers who tried to inflict further harm. “Y’all cover me!” Mr. Thompson was quoted as saying. “If these bastards open up on me or these people, you open up on them. Promise me!” “You got it boss,” Mr. Colburn replied. “Consider it done. ” Mr. Thompson, Mr. Colburn and Glenn Andreotta, the copter’s crew chief, found about 10 villagers cowering in a makeshift bomb shelter and coaxed them out, then had them flown to safety by two Huey gunships. They found an boy clinging to his mother’s corpse in an irrigation ditch and plucked him by the back of his shirt and delivered him to a nun in a nearby hospital. Crucially, they reported what they had witnessed to headquarters, which ordered a . By then, as many as 500 villagers had been killed. Would Mr. Colburn have fired at his fellow Americans? “How could I ever be prepared for something like that?” he replied years later. “Would I have? I guess that’s the $64, 000 question, isn’t it?” Seymour M. Hersh, the independent journalist who later uncovered the My Lai massacre, said of Mr. Colburn in a phone interview on Friday that “for a door gunner in Vietnam to point his machine gun at an American officer” under those circumstances “was in the greatest tradition of American integrity. ” Lawrence Manley Colburn was born on July 6, 1949, in Coulee Dam, Wash. His father, Harry, a World War II veteran, was a civil engineer who had helped build the Grand Coulee Dam. His mother, the former Catherine Manley, was a homemaker. His father died when Larry was 15. An altar boy, he attended Roman Catholic elementary and junior high schools and a public high school, where, after an altercation with an assistant principal, he was suspended for two weeks. Rather than return to school, he joined the Army. Because he was 17, he needed his mother’s permission. He earned his high school equivalency diploma in the Army before being shipped to Vietnam in December 1967. The full extent of the gang rapes, massacre and mutilations by Charlie Company in My Lai and another hamlet, on the South Central Coast, was not exposed until two months after Mr. Colburn was discharged. A Pulitzer report by Mr. Hersh for The Dispatch News Service in November 1969 provoked international outrage and eventually resulted in charges against more than a dozen officers. Only one, however, was convicted: Lieutenant Calley, for the murder of 22 civilians. He was sentenced to life imprisonment but ended up serving only three and a half years under house arrest at Fort Benning, Ga. Mr. Colburn entered Green River College in Auburn, Wash. on the G. I. Bill but struggled academically and financially and quit before graduating to become a commercial fisherman in Alaska. He later moved to Oregon, where he met Lisa Cale, a student at Eastern Oregon State College. They married in 1985 and moved to Atlanta, where he sold orthopedic rehabilitation equipment. She survives him, along with their son, Connor, and his sisters, Sheila Beal, Mary Jones and Colleen Capestany. My Lai became a paradigm for unbridled brutality and an object lesson in battlefield ethics, but the crewmen whose audacious intervention prevented even more bloodshed were largely forgotten. Their heroism was acknowledged with Bronze Stars, which they considered inappropriate recognition: The Bronze Star is awarded for bravery under enemy assault, they reasoned, and they had demonstrated courage in the face of friendly fire. After the investigations and trial, Mr. Thompson and Mr. Colburn received something else, too: hate mail. “One of the most infuriating things is being called a as if we went and ratted someone out,” Mr. Colburn told Vietnam Magazine. “That is completely false there was no going on. We were right in their face at My Lai. We were ready to confront those people then and there. And we did, the best we could. ” In the late 1980s, after seeing Mr. Thompson interviewed on a television documentary, David Egan, a professor at Clemson University in South Carolina, began a crusade to recognize, belatedly, the crew’s actions. Trent Angers, the author of “The Forgotten Hero of My Lai: The Hugh Thompson Story” (1999) told The Associated Press that Mr. Colburn had “stood up, shoulder to shoulder with Hugh and Glenn, to oppose and stand down against those who were committing crimes against humanity. ” “Without his assistance,” he added, “Hugh might not have done what he did. ” In 1998, 30 years after the massacre, Mr. Thompson and Mr. Colburn were awarded the Soldier’s Medal, which is granted for lifesaving bravery not involving direct contact with an enemy. “It is my solemn wish that we all never forget the tragedy and brutality of war,” Mr. Colburn said at the ceremony, held at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. “I would like to quote Gen. Douglas MacArthur: ‘The soldier, be he friend or foe, is charged with the protection of the weak and the unarmed.’ ” Mr. Thompson and Mr. Colburn walked the short distance to the memorial, where they made a rubbing of the inscribed name of Mr. Andreotta, who was killed in Vietnam three weeks after the massacre. He was awarded the Soldier’s Medal posthumously. The two men returned to My Lai that year, meeting some of the villagers they had rescued and dedicating an elementary school. On the flight home, Mr. Colburn recalled, he turned to Mr. Thompson and said, “It was so good to see all those little kids smiling again, not having to worry about being blown up, not having to be looking over their shoulders all the time, just being able to be kids. ” Mr. Thompson died of cancer in 2006 at 62. Two years later, on the 40th anniversary of the massacre, Mr. Colburn returned to Vietnam and was reunited with Do Ba, who as a boy had been rescued by Mr. Colburn from an irrigation ditch.

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Senate panel sets hearing for agriculture trade negotiator nominee

(Reuters) - The Republican-led Senate Finance Committee on Thursday set an Oct. 5 confirmation hearing for Gregory Doud, President Donald Trump’s nominee for the top agricultural negotiator job at the U.S. Trade Representative. If approved by the panel and confirmed by the full Senate, Doud would become Chief Agricultural Negotiator for the agency - a position that the U.S. farm sector has criticized Congress and the White House for leaving empty amid the current negotiations on modernizing the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Doud, who would be given the rank of Ambassador with the agency, is president of the Commodity Markets Council, the trade association for commodity futures exchanges. Previously, the Kansas farmer worked as a senior aide to the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee and spent eight years as the chief economist at the trade group National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. Doud was nominated by the White House in June. The following month, dozens of food and agriculture trade associations and companies sent letters to committee members, urging them to confirm Doud as the administration and Congress pushed to begin work on NAFTA.

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Trump, Easing Emissions Rule, Vows to Expand Auto Jobs - The New York Times

YPSILANTI, Mich. — President Trump came to the heart of the auto industry on Wednesday with a manifesto for American manufacturing: to remove the shackles of regulation and restore an age of industrial glory. Granting the automakers their top wish, Mr. Trump halted an initiative by the Obama administration to impose stringent standards by 2025 — rules meant to cut carbon emissions and meet international commitments to address climate change. Instead, Mr. Trump vowed to keep cutting regulations as a means to accelerate economic growth and add new jobs. “The assault on the American auto industry is over,” he declared. The move to reopen the government’s review of the standards will allow automakers to argue for less stringent — and less costly — mileage standards than the target of 54. 5 miles per gallon set in 2012 by President Barack Obama. But the Trump administration is expecting things from the automakers in return for its stance: new American jobs, and less investment in foreign operations. And while Mr. Trump vowed to improve business conditions at home, he pledged again to stop the flow of automotive investment and jobs to Mexico under the North American Free Trade Agreement, which he termed “a total disaster. ” “We want to be the car capital of the world again,” the president said. “And we will be. ” The announcement on pollution standards was delivered before hundreds of auto executives and workers in a former assembly plant near Detroit. It drew sharp criticism from environmental groups contending that laxer regulations would increase global warming and hurt consumers. But Mr. Trump had little to say about climate change or fuel prices on Wednesday, preferring to focus on his evolving economic doctrine, which he termed “the American model” for stimulating growth and business expansion. “Under this system, we will reduce burdens on our companies and on our businesses,” Mr. Trump said. “But, in exchange, companies must hire and grow in America. ” His policies will get their initial test with an auto industry that was was brought to its knees by the recession eight years ago and required an $80 billion taxpayer bailout, including the bankruptcies of General Motors and Chrysler. But now the industry is coming off two straight years of record sales in the United States, and automakers are flush with profits. By acceding to the automakers’ plea for regulatory relief, Mr. Trump is challenging them to funnel more resources into their American manufacturing operations. One auto industry analyst said the decision to reopen negotiations appears to have been brokered during meetings between the president and the chief executives of the three big American automakers — G. M. Ford Motor and Fiat Chrysler — shortly after he took office. “We believe an ‘art of the deal’ may have been struck trading jobs for regulatory relief,” the analyst, Brian Johnson of Barclays, wrote in a letter to investors on Wednesday. Detroit auto executives have been about their with the White House. All three companies have, however, already made promises to add or retain thousands of American jobs in response to Mr. Trump’s previous criticisms of their investments in Mexico. And just hours before Mr. Trump’s speech on Wednesday, G. M. said it would create 220 additional jobs in a Michigan transmission plant and retain 680 workers who were facing layoffs at another factory. Without mentioning the president’s decision on fuel standards, G. M.’s chief executive, Mary T. Barra, said the new and preserved jobs underscored the “overall positive outlook for the auto industry and the U. S. economy. ” Mr. Trump called G. M.’s move “just the beginning” of a new era of job growth in the industry. “That’s peanuts,” he said. “We’re going to have a lot more. They’re going to be building new plants, expanding their plants. ” But automakers may be to meet Mr. Trump’s expectations. The financial collapse of the industry during the recession is still a fresh memory, and companies have streamlined their manufacturing operations to eliminate costly excess capacity. Adding new plants in a market at its peak could upset the industry’s steady recovery and jeopardize the big profits earned in recent years on larger vehicles like pickups and sport utility vehicles. Automakers are also spending heavily on new technology for autonomous vehicles, yet they are not near the point of building plants to produce models. And despite the blooming partnership between the industry and the Trump administration, there are lingering worries among automakers about the potential for a border tax on imports from Mexico and elsewhere. A tax on imported models could raise prices on several vehicles in high demand by American consumers, including pickup trucks made in Mexico by G. M. and Fiat Chrysler. But Mr. Trump has an unlikely ally in Detroit for a tax on Mexican imports: the United Automobile Workers union, which supports his plan to renegotiate Nafta. The union’s president, Dennis Williams, has praised Mr. Trump for his position on Mexican trade. “We’ve been hollering about this for 20 years and he is the first president who has brought this up,” Mr. Williams said last month in a meeting with reporters. He was less supportive of Mr. Trump’s move to cut back on rules, noting that consumers benefit directly from improved mileage on new cars and trucks. Despite reopening the review of the fuel standards, Mr. Trump notably did not initiate any action to revoke the waivers of states, in particular California, to set their own emissions rules. That leaves California with the ability, for now, to impose stricter standards than whatever is ultimately decided by federal regulators. The rules, aimed at cutting carbon dioxide, were a pillar of President Obama’s climate change legacy. They would have required automakers to nearly double the average fuel economy of new cars and trucks to 54. 5 miles per gallon by 2025, forcing automakers to speed development of highly vehicles, including hybrid and electric cars. In the final days of the Obama administration, the Environmental Protection Agency affirmed the standards, despite the automakers’ appeals for further review. The review of the fuel rules will now stretch into 2018, and environmental groups are preparing for a fierce debate on the need for strict standards to combat climate change. “The future of the U. S. auto industry is at stake, and Mr. Trump is being shortsighted,” said Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate Campaign. Mr. Becker and other environmental activists argue that the auto companies have the technology necessary to meet the 2025 standards set by the Obama administration. Moreover, they contend that any increase in sticker prices from equipment would be more than offset by savings consumers get at the gas pump.

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ILLEGAL ALIENS DEMAND NEW BILL OF RIGHTS: To Include Citizenship, End Arrests And Free Health Care

Sounds great how about a new car?An immigrant-rights group proposed a Bill of Rights for illegal immigrants Thursday, demanding that Americans recognize there are millions already in the country who deserve health care, in-state tuition rates for college and a guarantee of citizenship in the long term.The list of demands runs 10 items long the same as the U.S. Constitution s Bill of Rights and also calls for an end to arrests and deportations for all law-abiding undocumented Americans. The document was circulated by United We Stay, which is a group of illegal immigrants, first generation Americans and human rights activists pushing for changes to immigration law. We know we have human rights, even though our very presence is deemed illegal and our existence alien. Now we have our own Bill of Rights and we want it to be the framework for every immigration decision going forward from the local to the national level, the group said in a statement announcing their demands.The 10 points include a demand that they be accorded respect; calls for citizenship rights and an immediate deferment of deportations; in-state tuition at public colleges; wage equality ; medical care; and protection against deportation if illegal immigrants report a crime as a witness.The list also includes a specific demand for compelled authorization of birth certificates for our U.S.-born children. That appears to be pushback against the state of Texas, where officials have ruled that parents must present valid ID to get children s birth certificates and have deemed the Mexican government s Matricula Consular ID card not to be acceptable as primary identification.A federal court has allowed that Texas policy to go into effect, ruling that there are questions about the reliability of the Mexican cards and that state officials have an interest in making sure only authorized relatives are able to get birth certificates.The list of rights begins with a protest against the terms illegal and alien. Immigrant-rights advocates say both terms are dehumanizing, and have offered undocumented workers or, in the case of United We Stand, Undocumented Americans, as their preferred term.The document is meant to serve as a goalpost for the ongoing immigration debate. Immigrant-rights groups had been gaining ground in recent years, with polls suggesting Americans were increasingly open to legalization.A legalization bill even passed the Senate in 2013 but Democrats, who controlled the chamber, never sent it to the GOP-run House for action.The issue then stalled last year after President Obama took unilateral action to grant a deportation amnesty to as many as 5 million of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. Federal courts have put that amnesty on hold, but Mr. Obama s other policies stopping deportations for most illegal immigrants remain in place, which has effectively checked off one of the list of rights demands. Via: Washington Times

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Gawker’s New Owner Deletes Six Posts Involved in Lawsuits - The New York Times

Executives at Univision, which bought Gawker Media last month for $135 million, voted on Friday to remove six posts previously published by Gawker Media sites. The posts, which were taken down on Saturday, are involved in continuing legal action. In a memo to the staff, John Cook, executive editor of Gawker Media, wrote that two Univision executives, Felipe Holguin and Jay Grant, explained that they had proposed deleting seven posts, which appeared on the Gawker sites Deadspin, Gizmodo or Jezebel, because they were “under active litigation against Gawker Media and that Unimoda had been authorized only to purchase the assets, and not the liabilities, of the company. ” (Unimoda is a subsidiary of Univision.) “Unimoda’s legal analysis was that the continued publication of the posts under the new entity would constitute the adoption of liability, and that Unimoda is therefore obligated to delete them,” Mr. Cook added. The Univision executives voted to remove six posts, while Mr. Cook voted to keep all seven online, he said. One of the seven posts, which contains a photo that is the subject of a copyright complaint, will remain online for now. A decision on whether to remove that post has been postponed pending further legal analysis. In a statement, Univision said, “At this time of transition, the decision was based on a desire to have a clean slate as we look to support and grow the editorial missions of the acquired brands. ” The decision to remove the posts was reported earlier by Gizmodo. Univision’s decision to delete the posts was a clear signal that the company does not want to deal with any of the legal baggage that comes with owning Gawker Media. In March, a Florida jury ruled against Gawker Media in an lawsuit by the former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan, whose real name is Terry G. Bollea, and awarded him $140 million. Not long after the trial, Peter Thiel, a billionaire Silicon Valley entrepreneur, revealed in an interview with The New York Times that he had secretly funded Mr. Bollea’s case and others against Gawker Media, though he did not say which ones. The judgment, and the threat that Mr. Thiel could keep bankrolling legal actions, proved to be too much for Gawker, and in June, the company filed for bankruptcy and put itself up for sale. Univision won an auction for Gawker Media in August but decided it would not continue to operate Gawker. com, Gawker Media’s flagship site, which had faced perhaps the most criticism of any Gawker Media property. In a memo to staff on Saturday, Isaac Lee, chief news, entertainment and digital officer at Univision, wrote that the decision to remove the posts “does not reflect an editorial judgment about their content. ” He also sought to reassure employees that Univision would stand behind Gawker Media posts going forward. “Should there be threats in the future related to stories published on our Gawker Media Group sites, no matter the date of publication, we will defend them as vigorously as we would defend stories published by Univision News, Fusion, The Root or any of our other properties,” Mr. Lee wrote, adding that the decision to remove the posts was “not a precedent for the future. ” The deleted posts include two that were published by Gizmodo in 2012 about the claim by a man named Shiva Ayyadurai that he had invented email. Mr. Ayyadurai filed a lawsuit this year against Gawker Nick Denton, the company’s founder and two Gawker journalists, Mr. Cook and Sam Biddle, contending that articles that cast doubt on Mr. Ayyadurai’s claims were defamatory. Charles J. Harder, who represented Mr. Bollea in the lawsuit against Gawker, is representing Mr. Ayyadurai in the lawsuit. It is not clear if Mr. Thiel is providing financial support for the case. (Mr. Harder is also representing Roger Ailes, the former chairman of Fox News, in potential litigation against New York magazine, and Melania Trump, the wife of the Republican presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump, in a libel lawsuit against The Daily Mail.) Other Gawker Media posts that have been removed include two about Mitch Williams, a baseball analyst and former major league pitcher one about a conservative blogger and another that called a man acquitted of sexual assault charges a rapist. In place of the posts, a note reads, “This story is no longer available as it is the subject of pending litigation against the prior owners of this site. ” The comments about the original post remain. In his memo, Mr. Cook wrote that the posts would be removed under a provision in Gawker’s collective bargaining agreement that states: “Once a story has been posted, it can only be removed by a majority vote of the executive editor, the C. E. O. and the general counsel, unless required by law. ” The provision was written into the contract between Writers Guild of America, East, and Gawker Media when Gawker Media’s editorial employees unionized, before Gawker put itself up for sale. The guild said in a statement on Saturday that it was “deeply troubled” by the decision to remove the posts. “Though Unimoda has offered assurances that it is committed to robust, fearless journalism, this move seems to belie that claim,” the guild said. “The decision to remove these posts casts a significant pall over Unimoda’s claimed commitment to the core values of our members employed by Unimoda. ” Union members plan to meet next week to discuss “an appropriate response” to Univision’s decision, the guild added. Mr. Cook also wrote that Mr. Holguin, the chief operating officer of the Fusion Media Group, a division of Univision, had been appointed interim chief executive of Gawker Media, and Mr. Grant, the general counsel of Fusion Media, had been named the company’s interim general counsel. The decision to delete the posts was met with anger and indignation on social media by current and former Gawker employees. “This,” Mr. Cook wrote on Twitter shortly after midnight on Saturday, “would have been a good Gawker post. ”

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Donald Trump’s Allies Battle for Favor of G.O.P. Givers He Mocked - The New York Times

Carl Icahn was late, but he still had something to say. Wedging himself around a table crowded with Republican donors at a Hamptons beach house, he jumped in as Senator Mitch McConnell described how important it was to hold on to the Senate this fall. It was important to help Republicans hold the Senate, Mr. Icahn told the room. But they were kidding themselves if they thought they could leave Donald J. Trump twisting in the wind. “We have to get behind Trump,” Mr. Icahn said, according to two people who attended the event, held shortly after the Republican convention in Cleveland. “We all have to come together. ” In hotel suites and skyboxes, from K Street to the Texas suburbs, in conversations that are both urgent and strained, allies of Mr. Trump are imploring senior Republicans and senior party donors to come to Mr. Trump’s aid, despite a damaging series of controversies that have left some in the party ready to abandon him. The goal is to persuade thousands of the party’s most reliable patrons to overcome their lingering objections to the candidate most of them never wanted, and to help defeat a Democrat most of them want even less. In the coming weeks, Mr. Trump and campaign officials will attend a string of organized with the Republican National Committee, hitting the summer haunts of the — from East Hampton to the California wine country — in a effort to tap into the party’s vast financial reserves. On Monday in Detroit, Mr. Trump is scheduled to unveil a set of detailed economic policy prescriptions, a speech his supporters hope will help Mr. Trump reset his campaign and remind wavering Republican donors of the stark contrast that he offers to Hillary Clinton on issues like taxes and regulation. “It’s somewhat of a natural evolution with the donor base,” said Gaylord T. Hughey Jr. an energy lawyer who formerly backed Jeb Bush and is now helping lead Mr. Trump’s in Texas. “I think the traditional donor base was somewhat shocked by Trump’s nomination. They’re learning more about him, but they’re also focused on what the alternative is, and what the implications of the alternative are. ” It is a dizzying turnaround for everyone involved, several donors said in interviews. Aides and for Mr. Trump, a billionaire who has spent months proclaiming his independence from the party’s traditional financial interests, now concede that they need mainline Republican donors to swing behind Mr. Trump so that he will have enough financial firepower to compete with Mrs. Clinton in the air and on the ground. While Mr. Trump’s campaign has rapidly ramped up bringing in $64 million jointly with the Republican committee through digital and direct mail appeals in July, he is lagging behind Mrs. Clinton on larger checks, particularly the and donations that wealthy donors make to party organizations. And just as he asks for help, the party’s establishment donors are reeling from Mr. Trump’s decision to pick fights with the family of a deceased Iraq war veteran and the popular Republican House speaker, Paul D. Ryan. Even so, many are grappling with the fact that he remains their only chance at keeping a Democrat out of the White House. But donors supportive of Mr. Trump said in interviews that they were encouraging their peers to consider the downside of a Clinton administration: a liberal Supreme Court and economic policies pushed to the left by Senator Bernie Sanders and the Democrats’ newly empowered progressive wing. “As he unfolds more details of his various policies, I believe the level of comfort will grow,” Wilbur L. Ross Jr. a New York investor and donor who held a for Mr. Trump in July, said in an email. “More and more people are realizing that they shouldn’t be distracted by the sideshows that result from clever Democratic baiting of Trump,” he added. Some Trump backers argue that despite his criticisms of Washington, Mr. Trump is likely to lean heavily on conservative think tanks and trade associations to stock his administration. Others are urging their fellow donors to face the hard truth that Mr. Trump thumped the donor class’s preferred candidates and earned the favor of Republican voters. Now, they say, it is time for the donors to respect the voters’ wishes. “In addition to fear of policies under a President Hillary Clinton, there’s a certain earned respect for Trump among these people,” said Kellyanne Conway, an adviser to Mr. Trump who is close to some of the party’s biggest donors. “The difference with some of these other successful people is respect for people who elevated him to the nomination. ” There are plenty of vocal and visible holdouts. Paul E. Singer, the prominent New York investor who raised more than $3 million for Mitt Romney during the 2012 campaign, has conveyed to Republican officials that he would not donate a dollar more to the Republican National Committee as long as Mr. Trump was the party’s nominee. Other prominent donors spoke out last week after Mr. Trump’s belittling of the parents of Capt. Humayun Khan, who died in a car bombing in Iraq in 2004 while serving in the Army. Seth Klarman, a Boston financier who has given more than $4 million to Republican candidates and groups over the years, has decided to back Mrs. Clinton. So has Meg Whitman, the executive who was a leading for Mr. Romney’s campaign, and who said last week that Mr. Trump was a “dishonest demagogue. ” On Wednesday, Mr. Klarman said that Mr. Trump’s “words and actions over the last several days are so shockingly unacceptable in our diverse and democratic society that it is simply unthinkable that Donald Trump could become our president. ” Mr. Trump has also been abandoned by Charles G. and David H. Koch, the billionaire brothers who oversee a network of conservative political and philanthropic groups. Many of their allied donors traveled to a luxury resort in Colorado Springs last weekend for the summer edition of the network’s biannual “seminars. ” Mr. Ryan, who clashed with Mr. Trump last week before finally getting his endorsement Friday for was invited to speak at the event. Mr. Trump was not — though some Trump supporters pressed his case at private meetings and cocktail hours. Doug Deason, a Dallas investor whose family is active in the Koch’s political network, urged Charles Koch to reconsider, Mr. Deason recalled in an interview. Mr. Koch declined. “I brought up the fact that it would be nice for him to at least say that he would vote for him,” said Mr. Deason, whose conversation with Mr. Koch was first reported by The Hill. Mr. Koch has said that Mr. Trump’s policies do not align with his own, or those of the groups that he and his brother oversee, and that they cannot support him simply because he is the Republican nominee, according to James Davis, a spokesman for Freedom Partners, a nonprofit group that runs the seminars. Mr. Deason said that other donors he spoke to were supporting Mr. Trump financially on their own. So is William I. Koch, the estranged brother of Charles and David, who hosted Mr. Trump at his home in Cape Cod, in Massachusetts, on Saturday. And Mr. Trump is also having luck outside the ranks of megadonors, among the thousands of business owners and volunteer who form the base of in presidential campaigns. “It’s no different from raising money with either Mitt or John McCain,” said Brian D. Ballard, a Florida lobbyist who previously backed Mr. Bush and Senator Marco Rubio, but is now raising money for Mr. Trump. Two recent events, in Tampa, Fla. and Miami, raised more than $2 million for Mr. Trump and his party. “It’s about: What is government going to look like?” said Mr. Ballard. “A Clinton government? To most of the people I deal with, it’s horrifying. ”

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Free Wi-Fi Kiosks Were to Aid New Yorkers. An Unsavory Side Has Spurred a Retreat. - The New York Times

The kiosks in New York were designed to replace phone booths and allow users to consult maps, maybe check the weather or charge their phones. But they have also attracted people who linger for hours, sometimes drinking and doing drugs and, at times, boldly watching pornography on the sidewalks. Now, yielding to complaints, the operator of the kiosks, LinkNYC network, is shutting off their internet browsers, but not their other functions, while it works out a Plan B with city officials. The switch, announced on Wednesday, is a case study in unintended consequences, commendable goals gone somewhat awry. Mayor Bill de Blasio’s aim of providing modern technology to the masses ran headlong into the reality of life on the city’s streets. After months of complaints from residents, businesses and other elected officials, Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, conceded that combining unfettered internet access with free was a recipe for bad behavior. The retreat comes just seven months after the mayor introduced the network amid much fanfare as a key plank of his promise to bridge the digital divide in the city. The kiosks would replace more than 7, 500 public pay phones and bring free and phone service to every neighborhood. Users were expected to make short stops at the kiosks. But the sites quickly attracted homeless people and other idle users who took full advantage of the unlimited access to the internet to turn the kiosks into al fresco living rooms, watching movies and playing music for hours. “People are congregating around these Links to the point where they’re bringing furniture and building little encampments clustered around them,” said Barbara A. Blair, president of the Garment District Alliance, a business group in Manhattan. “It’s created this really unfortunate and actually deplorable condition. ” Ms. Blair said her organization of Midtown merchants and property owners had welcomed the kiosks as an overdue replacement for increasingly outdated phone booths that were attracting vagrants and drug dealers. “We’re a modern city we should have ” Ms. Blair said. “But when something has an outcome that you completely weren’t anticipating, then you have to go back and reconsider. Maybe other cities don’t have this problem. ” Councilman Corey Johnson, a Democrat whose district encompasses Greenwich Village, Chelsea and part of Midtown, said police officials had asked for the removal of “several problematic kiosks” along Eighth Avenue. He said he had observed people watching pornography on the kiosk screens with children nearby. “These kiosks are often monopolized by individuals creating personal spaces for themselves, engaging in activities that include playing loud explicit music, consuming drugs and alcohol, and the viewing of pornography,” Mr. Johnson wrote in a letter last month to officials of the city and LinkNYC. In a Sept. 1 meeting at his office, Mr. Johnson said, officials agreed to his demand for a moratorium on the installation of additional kiosks on Eighth and Ninth Avenues in his district. But a spokeswoman for the mayor, Natalie Grybauskas, said the Police Department had not made any official request for kiosks to be removed. In a statement explaining the decision, Ms. Grybauskas said: “There were concerns about loitering and extended use of LinkNYC kiosks, so the mayor is addressing these complaints head on. Removing the internet browser from LinkNYC tablets will not affect the other great services LinkNYC provides — superfast free phone calls or access to key city services — but will address concerns we’ve heard from our fellow New Yorkers. ” Jen Hensley, general manager of LinkNYC, said the consortium that built and operated the kiosks had begun “removing the internet browsers while we look at ways to enhance the service. ” She said those changes could include adding services, as well as bringing back the browsers with limitations on their use. Ms. Hensley described the process of designing the kiosks as “iterative,” noting that several changes had already been made, including turning down the volume of the speakers at night and adding filters to prevent users from accessing pornography. The latest change would not slow the planned rollout of the kiosks throughout the five boroughs, she added. So far, about 400 have been installed in the Bronx, Manhattan and Queens. Continuing to build the network is critical for the consortium, which is relying on the sale of ads on the sides of the kiosks. It has pledged to share at least $500 million in ad revenue with the city over the first 12 years. Despite the efforts to filter out objectionable material, city officials have continued to receive complaints about people watching pornography at the kiosks. The filters do not affect internet access using the signals on personal phones or tablets. Gale A. Brewer, the Manhattan borough president, who had demanded changes to the kiosks, said she was pleased to hear about the shutdown of the browsers, and noted that the free was the true benefit of the kiosks. “I don’t think anybody should be able to sit there and watch movies all day long,” Ms. Brewer, a Democrat, said. “People are pulling up sofas or chairs or what have you. ” She likened turning off the browsers to the decision during the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s to block pay phones from accepting calls. All along Amsterdam Avenue, she said, crack dealers were using pay phones as business offices. “When we changed the incoming calls, we got rid of the drug dealers at the phone booths,” Ms. Brewer recalled. “I don’t know where they went, but they were gone. ”

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ISIS uses an industrial dough kneader to kill 250 children, roasts adults in a bakery oven in Douma, Syria

Email ISIS barbarians used an industrial dough kneader to kill 250 children, and roasted adults in a bakery oven, according to a shocking new report. In an interview with the humanitarian organization Roads of Success, Syrian mom Alice Assaf went into chilling detail about the atrocities the jihadists committed about two years ago in the town of Douma, explaining that some of the youngsters were even decapitated in front of their parents, according to the Express. “We heard that the militants grabbed six strong men working at the bakery and burned them inside the oven. We knew them,” Assaf told Dr. Yvette Isaac, who works for the advocacy group, according to the UK Mirror. “After that, they caught some 250 kids and kneaded them like dough in the bakery dough machine,” Assaf said, according to media reports. “They were put in the dough mixer, they were kneaded. The oldest one of them was four-years-old.” ISIS transported hundreds of girls to the city of Douma, which has been at the center of the Syrian civil war, to be slaughtered. ISIS has been systematically killing non-Muslims, and the majority of its victims at the time were Christian. Assaf said her own son, George, was killed by the radical militants after he refused to switch to a Muslim name. “My son said to me, ‘No, mother, I don’t want to die with an identity not my own. I prefer to die with the name George,'” Assaf said, according to the Christian Post. Assaf added, “I asked my son then to hide, but he refused and said, ‘I don’t want to hide myself. You are the one who taught me to follow what Christ said’ — ‘whoever denies me before man, I will also deny before my father who is in Heaven.'” Dr. Isaac reported the savage slayings to a member of the UK Parliament, Fiona Bruce, who recently recounted the horrifying testimony to her colleagues in open chambers. “She showed us recent film footage of herself talking with mothers–more than one– who had seen their own children crucified,” Bruce said. “She told us of a mother with a two-month-old baby. When [ISIS] knocked at the front door of her house and ordered the entire family out, she pleaded with them to let her collect her child from another room,” Bruce said. “She told us of a mother with a two-month-old baby,” Bruce continued. When [ISIS] knocked at the front door of her house and ordered the entire family out, she pleaded with them to let her collect her child from another room. They told her, ‘No. Go. It is ours now.’”

1real

Anis Amri, Suspect in the Berlin Truck Attack: What We Know - The New York Times

BERLIN — Anis Amri, a Tunisian man who turned 24 on Thursday, is the chief suspect in a investigation into Germany’s worst terrorist attack in decades. His fingerprints and identity document were found inside a that plowed into a Christmas market in Berlin on Monday, killing 12 people and injuring about 50 more. Here is a timeline of events in Mr. Amri’s life, drawn from government statements, interviews with officials and relatives, and news media accounts. Dec. 22, 1992: Mr. Amri is born in Oueslatia, a town in the midwest region of Tunisia, the youngest in a family of five sisters and four brothers. He drops out of secondary school at 14, and gains a reputation for drinking, partying and playing music. March 2011: Mr. Amri leaves with three friends by boat for Italy a few months after the start of the political uprising that overthrows Tunisia’s longtime president. He is later convicted in absentia by a Tunisian court for stealing a car, and sentenced to five years in prison. October 2015: Mr. Amri is arrested in Belpasso, Italy — a small town on the east coast of Sicily — and is sentenced to four years in prison for causing a fire, damaging property and making threats, according to the Italian Justice Ministry. Local news outlets report that three Tunisian asylum seekers, including a with the initials A. A. were arrested for setting fire to the center where they were staying, to protest poor living conditions and delays in the processing of their asylum claims. Italian prison records show he spent nearly four years in a total of six prisons. July 2015: Mr. Amri enters Germany. According to Ralf Jäger, the interior minister of North Germany’s most populous state, Mr. Amri is “highly mobile” over the next few months, passing through Freiburg, a city in the southwest, Berlin, and North . February 2016: Mr. Amri settles in Berlin, according to Mr. Jäger. His sisters said he finds work in construction and as a cook. March 14, 2016: Authorities in Berlin open a file on Mr. Amri because, according to the Berlin state prosecutor, of “indications from the federal security authorities” that he was a potential threat. Mr. Amri had evidently planned a robbery to get money to buy automatic weapons, “possibly in order to carry out an attack,” the prosecutor said. Undercover surveillance, including electronic monitoring of Mr. Amri’s movements, begins. The surveillance leads the authorities to believe that Mr. Amri is involved in drug dealing in the city’s notorious Görlitzer Park. Prosecutors said that, at one point, he got into a fight in a bar after a quarrel with another dealer. April 2016: Mr. Amri reportedly makes a formal application for asylum in Germany. June 2016: Mr. Amri is ordered deported. But, according to Mr. Jäger, he cannot be sent back to Tunisia because the country does not acknowledge that he is a citizen and he does not have a valid passport. July 30, 2016: Police in a town on the border with Switzerland detain Mr. Amri after checking the documents of passengers on a bus heading for Zurich. Given the deportation order, and the fact that it is a Saturday, a court orders Mr. Amri held for 48 hours in a jail in the town of Friedrichshafen, on Lake Constance. Aug. 1, 2016: Mr. Amri is released early, according to the director of the jail, Thomas Mönig, on the order of the office responsible for dealing with foreigners in Kleve — in the far northwest of Germany — because it has no way to carry out the deportation. He gives his address as being in Karlsruhe, about 125 miles from Friedrichshafen. September 2016: The monitoring of Mr. Amri ends, for reasons that are not clear. Nov. 8, 2016: German authorities detain Abu Walaa, a Salafist preacher known as the “man without a face” because he never faces the camera when delivering video sermons, and a identified as Boban S. German media reports say Mr. Amri was a guest several times at Boban S. ’s home. Dec. 19, 2016: Shortly after 8 p. m. a truck apparently hijacked by Mr. Amri careens into the Christmas market in Breitscheidplatz, a main public square in Berlin. Among the 12 people killed in the market are the Polish driver of the truck, whose body is found inside the cab an Israeli visitor and an Italian working in Berlin. Dec. 21, 2016: In the Dutch city of Nijmegen — it is not yet clear how he got there — Mr. Amri gets a free cellphone SIM card from a company that is handing them out at shopping malls. In Germany that evening, a warrant is issued for his arrest a reward of 100, 000 euros, or about $104, 000, is offered for information leading to his capture. Meanwhile, the Tunisian passport for Mr. Amri that the German authorities said was necessary for him to be deported finally arrives, months after it was requested. Dec. 22, 2016: The authorities conduct raids at several homes associated with Mr. Amri, as well as a Muslim cultural center and prayer room. They also search a bus in Heilbronn, a city in southwestern Germany. The federal prosecutor’s office announces that Mr. Amri’s fingerprints were found on the driver’s door of the truck and on the one of the upright structural supports on the side of the cab. Dec. 23, 2016: Mr. Amri shoots and wounds an Italian police officer in Sesto San Giovanni, a suburb north of Milan, after he is asked to show identification papers. In the gunfight, he is shot and killed. He had traveled there by train from Lyon, in central France, passing through Chambéry, France Turin, in northwestern Italy and the Central Station in Milan, where he arrived around 1 a. m. before making his way to Sesto San Giovanni.

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“We need to start killing people!”: Seattle Preschool Teacher Caught On Camera Spewing Vulgar Hate Speech [VIDEO]

WASHINGTON Shocking video has emerged on social media social showing Black Lives Matter activists calling for the death of white people during an anti-Trump protest in Seattle, WA. The YouTube account that uploaded the video claims the protester speaking is a pre-school teacher. Several of the highlights are quoted below: Fuck white supremacy, fuck the U.S. empire, fuck your imperialist ass lives. That shit gotta go. And we need to start killing people. First off, we need to start killing the White House. The White House must die. The White House, your fucking White House, your fucking Presidents, they must go! Fuck the White House. Pay the fuck up, pay the fuck up. It ain t just your fucking time, its your fucking money, and now your fucking life is devoted to social change, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIlsMKu67q0

1real

Clinton details plans to boost small businesses

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Democrat Hillary Clinton on Tuesday vowed to make starting a small business in the United States as easy as opening a lemonade stand if elected president, targeting a large economic sector and a significant voting bloc. Her flagship proposal is to establish a standard tax deduction for small businesses, previously only available to individuals, allowing owners to get tax relief without filing additional forms. Clinton would also expand healthcare tax credits in the Affordable Care Act for small businesses that employ up to 50 workers and create new federal incentives for local and state governments to streamline the business licensing process, according to background provided by her campaign. Since launching her campaign in April 2015, Clinton has said she wants to be the “small business president” if she wins the Nov. 8 election against businessman Donald Trump, the Republican nominee. Trump has offered lower tax rates for small businesses and cuts to federal regulations to help “jump-start America.” Clinton’s campaign held a conference call with small business owners on Tuesday to discuss her proposals and offer ways they could help with the former secretary of state’s campaign. “You will always have a seat at the table,” Clinton told business owners on the call, taking questions from entrepreneurs in Virginia and Michigan. Small businesses play a vital economic role in the United States, making up 99.7 percent of U.S. employer firms and providing 49.2 percent of U.S. private-sector jobs, according to the Small Business Administration. The proposals announced by Clinton’s campaign on Tuesday fill in details on how the Democratic nominee would fulfill promises to improve access to financing and minimize regulatory burdens that make it difficult to start small businesses. “They tell me more dreams die in the parking lots of banks than anywhere in America,” Clinton said of the feedback she has received from small business owners. “I’d like to get rid of the unnecessary red tape,” Clinton said of regulations on credit unions and small banks that make it difficult to lend to would-be entrepreneurs. Clinton’s campaign said she also wants to guarantee that small businesses with questions about U.S. government regulations receive an answer within 24 hours. Clinton’s running mate, U.S. Senator Tim Kaine, discussed the new proposals during a Tuesday roundtable with small business owners in Colorado, a battleground state.

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Wife Of Pastor Freed In Iran Just Demolished The Right-Wing Criticism Of Obama’s Actions (VIDEO)

Ever since President Obama made history with a groundbreaking nuclear disarmament deal with Iran, Republican lawmakers have tried to undermine the nature of the agreement by pointing to several American citizens who were still languishing in the country s prison. They argued that no deal can truly be reached until Iran released the imprisoned Americans. That all changed on Saturday, January 16, when the Obama administration pulled off yet another victory: Securing the release of five American prisoners, who will now get to return to their families.This is great news, right? Apparently, not if you are a conservative politician.Rather than celebrate, Republicans still allergic to acknowledging Obama s accomplishments, no matter how uncontroversial whined and complained. Donald Trump, the current Republican front-runner, even suggested the prisoners should have stayed in Iranian prison because it was a bad deal. They re getting seven people, so essentially they get $150bn plus seven, and we get four, the billionaire said.Marco Rubio agreed with Trump that the prisoner swap was a bad idea. His disingenuous argument was that swapping made America weak despite the fact that America has had no problem using the technique since the Revolutionary War.One of the main criticisms Republicans leveled at Obama was that he didn t care about the prisoners. Just days before the White House announced the release of the prisoners, Republican politicians and pundits were claiming Obama didn t care about them at all.You can t ask #JasonRezaian bc Obama did a deal with Iran thugs who have held Jason hostage for almost 600 days. https://t.co/jzd7EyzbI0 Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) January 13, 2016Hey Iran, you have exactly 300 days left to push a US president around. Enjoy it while you can. After that, there will be hell to pay. Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) January 12, 2016In fact, we now know with certainty that nothing could be further from the truth. Secretary of State John Kerry has been working around the clock to get these Americans home. (Note: Obama isn t the only one who gets no credit. Not a single Republican thanked Kerry for his efforts, either. Ted Cruz did thank God though.)Praise God! Surely bad parts of Obama's latest deal, but prayers of thanksgiving that Pastor Saeed is coming home. https://t.co/rad1VcWUml Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) January 16, 2016This political posturing might play well with the fringe right who love to hear about Obama s failures, but the families of the victims are telling an entirely different story. According to the wife of one of the prisoners, Obama was dogged about getting these Americans home to their families.On CNN, Naghmeh Abedini, the wife of Christian pastor Saeed Abedini (imprisoned in Iran since 2012), said Obama assured her that he and his administration were doing everything they could to bring him home even while Republicans screeched on Fox News saying the opposite. Speaking with Wolf Bltizer, Abedini said: It s been wonderful. Especially the last year. Constant communication. Constant updates. Of course last year, we met with President Obama. He was in Boise, Idaho, [and] we had a private meeting with [him]. The last year has been the best support. They were continually updating us talks they were having with Iran and the side negotiations. I had a feeling in the last few months that it was coming to a close, but I wasn t really sure and I wouldn t trying to get my hopes up. In other words, the Obama administration had been doing all the things you would hope a president would when wrestling with a tense negotiation with a foreign country that doesn t exactly love America.This has been a common theme during Obama s presidency. Fox News pundits and right-wing politicians hoping to score cheap political points take potshots at the president, because they know he can t respond. Obama s silence wasn t apathy, it was necessary in order to make the deal work. So rather than tank the negotiation for his own reputation, he took the punches and worked on in silence.It s worth remembering, particularly on a day like this, that the Republican alternative to these successful negotiations was to quite literally start a war with Iran. It s never been clear how exactly they reasoned that a new world war would help things, but then, war has always been an easy answer. Diplomacy takes more intelligence, and a heck of a lot more courage.Watch Abedini s interview via CNN below:Featured image via CNN

1real

Congressional auditors: VA health care is high-risk

The Department of Veterans' Affairs vast health network — beset by a scandal last year over delayed care — has been listed as a high-risk federal program by congressional auditors for the first time. The report by the watchdog Government Accountability Office, which is issued every two years, includes a broad indictment of the $55.5 billion VA program, one of the nation's largest health care systems. USA TODAY obtained the VA section of the report, scheduled for release Wednesday. The number of aging or disabled veterans treated by the VA has grown to 8.9 million from 6.8 million in 2002, and Congress has increased funding by 85% during that time. Yet problems with poor health care, delayed doctor appointments and leadership accountability and oversight persist, according to the report. The GAO said it keeps issuing audits identifying problems — eight just last year — but more than 100 areas of mismanagement remain unresolved, according to the report. VA spokesman James Hutton, in a response, said the department is committed to becoming a "model agency" and example for other government programs to emulate. "In many ways, (the VA health care system) is on the cutting edge of the industry. In other areas, we realize we need to make significant improvements," Hutton said. Federal agencies or programs are chosen for the high-risk list by the GAO based on such factors as health or safety, delivery of services and incidents of injury or loss of life. "These risks to the timeliness, cost-effectiveness, quality and safety of veterans' health care, along with persistent weaknesses we have identified in recent years, raises serious concerns about VA's management and oversight of its health care system," the report said. "VA health care is a high-risk area." The VA became enveloped in scandal last year over allegations that veterans had died waiting for care at a hospital in Phoenix. The agency's Inspector General office, which launched a probe into the allegations, found that delays contributed to the deaths of VA patients. However, inspectors concluded that delays may have contributed to the deaths of some veterans and that the falsifying of appointment records by VA staffers to hide delays is a systemic problem within the VA health care system. Eric Shinseki, a retired general appointed by President Obama to lead the agency in 2009, resigned after claiming he had been misled about the extent of the VA problems. His replacement, Bob McDonald, has vowed to move aggressively to revamp the VA. He launched the MyVA initiative in September devoted to improving customer service for veterans. Yet McDonald has come under criticism for not firing those responsible for the scandal despite new rules passed by Congress making it easier to dismiss employees. The GAO report cites the falsified appointment records, and complains about a shoddy evaluation process for doctors who make mistakes, the reliance on data submitted by hospitals under review, handing out undeserved bonuses, chronically inadequate computer systems and poor training of staff. The report said major improvements for the VA could flow from new legislation signed by Obama last summer that improves access to care and pays for more staff.But the agency has to follow through on recommendations expected from an independent review group and a bipartisan commission created by the legislation.

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Dakota Access Pipeline Funding: Banks and Oil Companies in the Endless Destruction of Native Lands

by Bryan William Myers | Oct 29, 2016 Back on Sept. 3, 2016, Labor Day weekend in America, protesters in North Dakota representing the Standing Rock Sioux were attacked with dogs and pepper spray while attempting to halt construction on an approximately $4 billion crude oil pipeline that would extend nearly 1,200 miles from the northern interior of the U.S. to south-central Illinois. One of the oil companies “responsible” for the pipeline is Dakota Access, LLC — a subsidiary of Energy Transfer Crude Oil Company, LLC . Some quick facts about the pipeline, from an Energy Transfer Partners website: The pipeline will “…transport crude oil from the Bakken/Three Forks play in North Dakota to a terminus in Illinois with additional potential points of destination along the pipeline route.” “The pipeline will translate into millions in state and local revenues during the construction phase and an estimated $156 million in sales and income taxes.” “The Dakota Access Pipeline Project is a $3.7 billion investment into the United States directly impacting the local and national labor force by creating 8,000–12,000 construction jobs and up to 40 permanent operating jobs.” “The pipeline is anticipated to be fully functional by 2016.” Ultimately, this is conjecture. WHO ARE THE SIOUX? About the Sioux: “The Standing Rock Sioux Reservation is situated in North and South Dakota. The people of Standing Rock, often called Sioux, are members of the Dakota and Lakota nations. ‘Dakota’ and ‘Lakota’ mean ‘friends’ or ‘allies’. The people of both these nations are often called ‘Sioux’, a term that dates back to the seventeenth century when the people were living in the Great Lakes area. The Ojibwa called the Lakota and Dakota ‘Nadouwesou’ meaning ‘adders’. This term, shortened and corrupted by French traders, resulted in retention of the last syllable as ‘Sioux.’ There are various Sioux divisions and each has important cultural, linguistic, territorial, and political distinctions.” Where do they live? “The Great Sioux Reservation comprised all of present-day South Dakota west of the Missouri River, including the sacred Black Hills and the life-giving Missouri River. Under article 11 of the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty, the Great Sioux Nation retained off-reservation hunting rights to a much larger area, south to the Republican and Platte Rivers, and east to the Big Horn Mountains. Under article 12, no cession of land would be valid unless approved by three-fourths of the adult males. Nevertheless, the Congress unilaterally passed the Act of February 28, 1877, removing the Sacred Black Hills from the Great Sioux Reservation. The United States never obtained the consent of three-fourths of the Sioux, as required in article 12 of the 1868 Treaty. The U.S. Supreme Court concluded that ‘A more ripe and rank case of dishonorable dealings will never, in all probability, be found in our history.'” As the years wore on, and more of their land was claimed by the invader — the U.S. government — the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe eventually formed their own constitution in 1959 to be overseen by a Tribal Council. “The Tribal Council consists of a Chairman, Vice-Chairman, a Secretary, and fourteen additional Councilmen which are elected by the tribal members.” And now, once again, they are up against the sprawling U.S. empire, which will stop at nothing when natural resources are coveted for the invader’s profit machine. This time, it’s the unelected bureaucracy of oil companies and monopolistic energy partnerships in America paired with the funding from nearly 20 U.S., U.K., and other international banking institutions who are all involved in this endless destruction of Native lands. Combined with a militarized police state — hundreds of arrests, assaults with batons and rubber bullets, armored vehicles with sound cannons, Humvees, helicopters flying overhead, and troops from the National Guard — the recent events in North Dakota resemble that of a war zone, more than a peaceful protest. TRANSPORTING OIL OUT OF NORTH DAKOTA Crude oil transported out of North Dakota has traditionally been shipped on rail cars to get to the east coast. Over the years, the competitive push to match domestic demand with imported crude oil pressurized the internal transport system, increasing rail-car shipping incidents. From Pennsylvania StateImpact , “a reporting project of NPR member stations”: “Refineries on the East Coast used to rely on crude oil from Nigeria and the Gulf of Mexico shipped on large tankers. Today, trains carrying crude oil from North Dakota’s Bakken Shale travel on rail lines through Pennsylvania. The rail shipments are part of a larger nationwide boom in rail traffic resulting from the oil and gas boom and have helped keep refineries in the Philadelphia region stay in business . However, increased traffic on the rails has resulted in a surge in accidents, including an explosive derailment in Lac-Megantic, Quebec that left 47 people dead in July 2013. The crude-by-rail phenomenon has come under intense scrutiny from federal agencies, as well as state and local governments across the country who worry that a derailment in more populous cities like Pittsburgh and Philadelphia could result in catastrophe.” This, in tandem with crashing oil prices . Paired with a previous announcement in May 2015 from the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), for new rules to “strengthen the safe transportation of flammable liquids by rail”. And you’ve got a perfect environment for vulture capitalist intervention. THE BANKS SWOOP IN Back in September, Democracy Now! did an exclusive report entitled “Who’s Investing in the Dakota Access Pipeline? Meet the Banks Financing Attacks on Protesters”. “We continue our conversation with Hugh MacMillan (senior researcher at Food & Water Watch) on his new investigation revealing the financial institutions backing the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline project. The investigation, published by research outlet LittleSis, names more than two dozen major banks and financial institutions helping to finance the Dakota Access pipeline. It details how Bank of America, HSBC , UBS , Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, and other financial institutions have, combined, extended a $3.75 billion credit line to Energy Transfer Partners, the parent company of Dakota Access.” In the interview, MacMillan begins: “Dakota Access, LLC is a joint venture of Phillips 66, and a joint venture of two members of the Energy Transfer family, Energy Transfer Partners and Sunoco Logistics. Enbridge (Energy Partners) and Marathon (Petroleum Corporation) oil have bought into this joint venture. Together, they now have about a 37% stake in the pipeline, the Dakota Access pipeline.” When Amy Goodman asked how the banks were involved, MacMillan responded: “They’re banking on this company, and banking on being able to drill and frack for the oil to [be sent] through the pipeline over the coming decades. So they’re providing the capital for the construction of this pipeline.” MacMillan then asserts that the 17 banks in their funding of the Dakota Access pipeline through Energy Transfer Partners are also coupled together with an existing pipeline that will be converted to extend from the southern end of the Dakota Access pipeline all the way down to the Gulf Coast. “Where there are refineries and also export infrastructure.” Here is a picture of that proposal from the Sunoco Logistics website: MacMillan stated the ultimate goal of the pipeline projects will be to have one pipeline that would run from “near the Canadian border on down to the Gulf Coast of Texas, over 1,800 miles.” As to which banks, specifically, are directly involved in the Dakota Access pipeline: “Citibank is the bank that’s been running the books on the project. And that’s the bank that ‘beat the bushes’ and got other banks to join in. So we have Wells Fargo, BNP Paribas, SunTrust, the Royal Bank of Scotland, the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Mizuho Bank, TD Securities, ABN AMRO, DNB First bank (based in Philadelphia), ICBC London, SMBC Nikko Securities, and Societe Generale.” Goodman then asked MacMillan about the drop in demand for oil, in the past year, with regard to a personal conversation she had with an oil trucker. “If you ask Morgan Stanley, they said a year ago that the oil producers are getting into ‘prison shape’— without irony. So these are long term investments from the banks. They fully expect the United States to maximize its production of oil and gas through widespread fracking.” MacMillan summarized what he believed was most crucial for people to understand about the Dakota Access Pipeline: “Well, I think it’s important to see the forces behind this particular pipeline as the same forces behind numerous other pipelines across the country, both to support fracking for tight oil as well as fracking for shale gas, all toward maximizing production of oil and gas. When the science is clear that we need to maximize what we keep in the ground. Our current policy has not made that switch. And if you look at the Department of Energy’s Quadrennial Technology Review, published a year ago, you’ll see under clean energy technologies, permeability manipulation is included along with improved understanding of well integrity and improved understanding of injections and how they’re causing earthquakes, such as [what] occurred over the weekend in Oklahoma. The Quadrennial Technology Review speaks of a future mastery of the subsurface towards maximizing production.” OTHER HANDS IN THE POT Most recently, it has come out that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has anywhere from $500,000 to $1 million invested in Energy Transfer Partners , the parent company of the Dakota Access pipeline, in addition to having $500,000 – $1 million invested in Phillips 66 — a company which will also hold a 25% stake in the pipeline. Kelcy Warren, co-founder and chief executive of Energy Transfer Partners, donated more than $100,000 to Trump’s campaign, and he gave nearly $67,000 to the Republican National Committee since Trump became the party’s controversial candidate for president in the 2016 election. According to the Guardian, Warren gave a $3,000 personal donation to Trump’s election campaign back in June. That amount exceeded $2,700 — the legal limit for individual contributions. Previously, Warren donated $550,000 to current Texas governor Greg Abbott’s 2014 campaign. After Abbott won the election, he then appointed Warren and his wife to state boards, the Guardian reported. “Warren has worked in the energy industry for the past 25 years and has a net worth of $3.8bn, according to Forbes . The Texas-based businessman has said concerns over the Dakota Access pipeline are ‘unfounded’ and insisted there are no Native American artifacts at risk from its construction. He vowed that Energy Transfer Partners will press ahead with the project .” RECENT RESPONSES FROM POLITICIANS ON DAKOTA ACCESS PIPELINE On Thursday, Oct. 27, Hillary Clinton’s campaign released a statement with regard to the Dakota Access pipeline project and the ongoing protests where hundreds have been arrested in recent weeks. “It’s important that on the ground in North Dakota, everyone respects demonstrators’ rights to protest peacefully, and workers’ rights to do their jobs safely…” Bernie Sanders made a much less benign statement on the issue: “The major global crisis facing our planet today is climate change. The vast majority of scientists tell us that climate change is real, it is caused by humans and it is already causing devastating problems. They say that if we do not aggressively transition our energy system away from fossil fuels toward energy efficiency and sustainable energy, the planet we leave our children will be a much less habitable place. Like the Keystone XL pipeline, which I opposed since day one, the Dakota Access fracked oil pipeline, will transport some of the dirtiest fuel on the planet. Regardless of the court’s decision, the Dakota Access pipeline must be stopped. As a nation, our job is to break our addiction to fossil fuels, not increase our dependence on oil. I join with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the many tribal nations fighting this dangerous pipeline.” Here is Sanders’ letter to U.S. President Barack Obama on this issue, from Oct. 28. A previous letter, dated Oct. 13, was also sent to the president, regarding the halting of construction on the Dakota Access pipeline. That letter was also signed by Sanders, in addition to four other U.S. Senators. Collectively, banks from nearly a dozen countries are involved in the funding of the Dakota Access pipeline. And, last weekend, on Friday, Oct. 21, an oil pipeline was breached , spilling gasoline in close proximity to the Susquehanna River, in an area of Lycoming County, Pennsylvania — about 100 miles north of the state capital, Harrisburg. The spill was estimated at 1,300 barrels, or 55,000 gallons of gasoline. The owner of that pipeline is Sunoco Logistics, which has had over 200 leaks of crude since 2010, much more than any of its competitors. It’s the same oil company that will be operating the Dakota Access pipeline. Bryan William Myers Bryan is a freelance writer/copy editor/copywriter. He reads, researches and drinks beer. He also writes poetry, short stories, essays, and is working on various novels, some of which include private documentation of traveling and living in Philadelphia, Colorado, and New Jersey. Currently, he lives in South Philadelphia. He also paints and records his own music. Join We Are Change!

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AFTER A SURPRISE DETOUR…PRESIDENT TRUMP Arrives in Palm Beach to Celebrations and Protests: “We are victorious” [Video]

PRESIDENT TRUMP MADE A SURPRISE DETOUR ON HIS WAY TO AIR FORCE ONE TODAY President Trump stopped at Joint Base Andrews and greeted military service members and their families as he was en route to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.After landing at Joint Base Andrews, he exited Marine One and headed for an air terminal to greet approximately two dozen military service members were waiting along a fence line. The move was unexpected and the crowd had originally gathered to watch him leave Joint Base Andrews. While you were down here, I wanted to say hello, Trump said, according to a press pool report.He then proceeded to shake their hands as he wished them a Merry Christmas. After shaking hands, Trump then boarded Air Force One PRESIDENT TRUMP ARRIVES IN PALM BEACH:President Trump is in Florida for a well-deserved break over the Christmas holiday. This is President Trump s tenth visit to Palm Beach since he came to office last January.He arrived in Palm Beach at 1:35 p.m. Friday to celebrate the holidays with his family at Mar-a-Lago. This trip will be much shorter since he s scheduled to return to Washington, D.C. on new year s Day..@realDonaldTrump exiting Air Force One at PBIA. #TrumpInPalmBeach pic.twitter.com/ShB4OuCTQk George Bennett (@gbennettpost) December 22, 2017President Trump greeted supporters at the Palm Beach airport before he went on to Mar-a-Lago..@realDonaldTrump greeting supporters at PBIA. #TrumpInPalmBeach pic.twitter.com/NC9QBjg6s1 George Bennett (@gbennettpost) December 22, 2017Both supporters and protesters are standing along Southern Boulevard to watch the president s motorcade pass by.Rabbi Alan Sherman wearing a @realDonaldTrump yarmulke awaiting Air Force One arrival at PBIA. #TrumpInPalmBeach pic.twitter.com/glTUoKiQkO George Bennett (@gbennettpost) December 22, 2017The president s motorcade drove unusually slow along Southern Boulevard so he could wave to crowds on the street.Barbara Goff, with niece Savannah, said of @realDonaldTrump: I think he is a very smart and intelligent person. People don t like him and I don t know why. The protestors are awful just disgraceful to the people who are for him. #TrumpInPalmBeach pic.twitter.com/Fv71s9RRje Jorge Milian (@caneswatch) December 22, 2017Among supporters was a group of Orthodox Jews who made signs thanking Trump for commuting the prison sentence of Sholom Rubashkin, a former meatpacking executive convicted of bank fraud.Jewish pro-Trump group dancing and singing We are victorious outside Dreher Park. #TrumpInPalmBeach pic.twitter.com/RXE9WrBfh5 Jorge Milian (@caneswatch) December 22, 2017

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Harvard Cancels Men’s Soccer Season After Finding Sexually Explicit ‘Reports’ Continued Through 2016

Harvard Cancels Men’s Soccer Season After Finding Sexually Explicit ‘Reports’ Continued Through 2016 Andrew M. Duehren et al., Harvard Crimson, November 3, 2016 Harvard has cancelled the men’s soccer team’s season after an Office of General Counsel review found that the team continued to produce vulgar and explicit documents rating women on their perceived sexual appeal and physical appearance. Athletics Director Robert L. Scalise wrote in an email to Harvard student athletes that he decided to cancel the rest of the team’s season because the “practice appears to be more widespread across the team and has continued beyond 2012, including in 2016.” “As a direct result of what Harvard Athletics has learned, we have decided to cancel the remainder of the 2016 men’s soccer season,” Scalise wrote. “The team will forfeit its remaining games and will decline any opportunity to achieve an Ivy League championship or to participate in the NCAA Tournament this year.” Last week, The Crimson reported that the 2012 men’s soccer team created a “scouting report” of that year’s women’s soccer recruits, rating them numerically and assigning each a hypothetical sexual position. University President Drew G. Faust instructed OGC, Harvard’s team of lawyers, to “review” the matter. {snip} “The decision to cancel a season is serious and consequential, and reflects Harvard’s view that both the team’s behavior and the failure to be forthcoming when initially questioned are completely unacceptable, have no place at Harvard, and run counter to the mutual respect that is a core value of our community,” Faust wrote in a statement. Faust wrote she “was deeply distressed to learn that the appalling actions of the 2012 men’s soccer team were not isolated to one year or the actions of a few individuals.” {snip} Last week, when Scalise first saw the documents—which were, until recently, publicly accessible through the 2012 team’s Google Group—he said he would immediately reach out to coaches of both men’s and women’s teams to discuss the report, but added that any response should be internal to Harvard and “not a media thing.” {snip} Men’s soccer coach Pieter S. Lehrer wrote in a statement that the team is “beyond disappointed that our season has ended in this way, but we respect the decision made by our administration.” {snip}

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China says foreign press welcome, as some media outlets excluded from key event

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday told foreign journalists to roam the country and report more, even as five global news organisations found themselves without invitations to cover his speech. The BBC, The Economist, The Financial Times, The Guardian and The New York Times were not invited to the event where Xi introduced his new leadership line-up following a once-in-five-years Communist Party Congress, the Foreign Correspondents Club of China (FCCC) said. Two Reuters journalists were invited. We encourage reporters to travel and see more of China... to learn about and continue to report on more aspects of China, Xi told a gathering of Chinese and international journalists. He did not take questions. We do not need lavish praise from others. However, we do welcome objective reporting and constructive suggestions. Under Xi, China has stepped up censorship and tightened controls on the internet and various aspects of civil society. Reporting conditions for foreign journalists in China have deteriorated in recent years, according to media watchdog groups, with areas of the country including Tibet effectively off-limits. The FCCC criticized the exclusion of the Western news organisations. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that these media organisations have been singled out to send a message, the FCCC said in a statement posted on Twitter. Using media access as a tool to punish journalists whose coverage the Chinese authorities disapprove of is a gross violation of the principles of press freedom. The Beijing bureau chiefs at the Economist and Financial Times both confirmed to Reuters that they had not received invitations. The New York Times had applied for and not received an invitation, a spokesperson said in an email. We are disappointed that we were denied access to President Xi s press conference. The BBC will continue to report fairly and objectively on the stories of China, the BBC said in a statement. The Guardian published a story saying it was among those organisations excluded. Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang referred specific questions about the congress to the press center but said foreign reporters were welcome to cover the gathering. We handle foreign reporter applications according to rules and regulations, he told reporters. An official at the press center told Reuters that it had organized many events that foreign media could and did attend. The Standing Committee unveiling venue had limited space and so there was no guarantee all foreign media who applied could attend, the official said. We hope that foreign media can really pay attention to China s development and objectively and fairly report on China and the Communist Party, said the official, who asked not be named. There were more than 3,000 reporters covering the congress, according to state media, and the leadership announcement was held in a side room at Beijing s Great Hall of the People, not in the cavernous main auditorium.

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TREY GOWDY Reminds Comey It’s 10 years in jail for Obama Officials Who LEAKED Info [Video]

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Israeli, Palestinian killed in two violent incidents

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - An Israeli and a Palestinian were killed on Thursday in two separate incidents in Israel and the occupied West Bank, officials said. An Israeli man was stabbed to death in the southern Israeli city of Arad in what police said was most probably a terrorist attack . The investigation is continuing and police units are searching for the suspect who fled the scene, said a police spokesman. Earlier in the day, an Israeli settler shot and killed a Palestinian man in the West Bank, in what the Israeli army said was a response to an attack by Palestinians throwing rocks, an account that Palestinians denied. The Israeli military said the shooter had opened fire in self-defense as part of a group of settlers hiking near the village of Qusrah who had come under attack. Local villagers identified the Palestinian who was killed as Mahmoud Odeh, a 48-year-old farmer. They denied that any clash had taken place before the shooting. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the incident as a cowardly act and evidence to the world of the ugly crimes conducted by settlers against unarmed Palestinians , his office said in a statement. The Israeli military said troops arrived at the scene after the shooting. Israeli police said they were investigating the incident. A wave of Palestinian street attacks that began two years ago has largely dissipated and it is uncommon for two deadly events to occur in the same day.

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BREAKING: Obama: “We Have Not Had a Major Scandal” in My Administration! HAHAHA!

0 comments Obama was speaking to donors at a private fundraiser in California when he railed against former House Oversight Committee Chair Darrell Issa for calling his administration corrupt. “Here’s a guy who called my administration perhaps the most corrupt in history — despite the fact that actually we have not had a major scandal in my administration,” Obama said! Obama has had more scandals than any president in history! Just because the MSM refuses to report on them does not mean they do not exist! Breitbart reports : Issa was the key figure in several investigations of the Obama administration, including the Fast and Furious debacle with Attorney General Eric Holder, Hillary Clinton’s failure in Benghazi, the failures in the Veterans Affairs department, and the IRS using its power to target conservative Tea Party groups for investigations. Obama accused Issa of wasting taxpayer money “on trumped-up investigations that have led nowhere.” “This guy has spent all his time simply trying to obstruct, to feed the same sentiments that resulted in Donald Trump becoming their nominee,” Obama said. We could list 77 scandals, but here are just 7 of the biggest! 1.) IRS Targeting Scandal In 2013, Lois Lerner, former director of the IRS Exempt Organizations division, admitted that officials in the IRS’ Cincinnati office acted improperly. 2.) VA Waiting List The Department of Veterans Affairs inspector general first noted the waiting list problem at a Phoenix clinic in 2014 and then found other clinics with similar problems. Veterans were placed on phony waiting lists, and some even died while waiting for care. VA Secretary Eric Shinseki resigned from his position. 3.) GSA Spending Spree In 2012, Martha N. Johnson, the administrator of the General Services Administration, resigned after the federal procurement agency was engulfed in a controversy. The department was accused of allowing excessive spending on travel and conferences for the agency and employees. 4.) Attack on the Benghazi Compound On Sept. 11, 2012, weeks before a presidential election, terrorists attacked U.S. government facilities in Benghazi, Libya. Obama administration officials initially blamed this attack on a spontaneous protest against an anti-Muslim YouTube video that spun out of control. 5.) Clinton Emails It was the Benghazi committee that first discovered that before, during, and after her time as secretary of state, Clinton maintained a private email server. This prompted the FBI to investigate questions of whether Clinton violated the law in terms of storing classified information. 6.) Fast and Furious Gun Walking Operation Fast and Furious was a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives program, meant to be a sting operation. It allowed about 2,000 guns to flow to Mexican drug trafficking organizations under federal supervision before authorities lost control of the guns. 7.) Solyndra Subsidies The Energy Department provided a $535 million loan guarantee to the politically connected solar panel firm Solyndra as part of the 2009 stimulus bill. Not long after building its factory, the California firm filed for bankruptcy protection and an FBI investigation ensued. The company did not find a buyer and eventually closed down. So Barack Obama…just shut up!

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The FBI Is the Regime’s Secret Police

The FBI Is the Regime’s Secret Police The FBI Is the Regime’s Secret Police By 0 58 When FBI Director James Comey announced on July 5 that the Department of Justice would not seek the indictment of Hillary Clinton for failure to safeguard state secrets related to her email use while she was secretary of state, he both jumped the gun and set in motion a series of events that surely he did not intend. Was his hand forced by the behavior of FBI agents who wouldn’t take no for an answer? Did he let the FBI become a political tool? Here is the back story. The FBI began investigating the Clinton email scandal in the spring of 2015, when The New York Times revealed Clinton’s use of a private email address for her official governmental work and the fact that she did not preserve the emails on State Department servers, contrary to federal law. After an initial collection of evidence and a round of interviews, agents and senior managers gathered in the summer of 2015 to discuss how to proceed. It was obvious to all that a prima-facie case could be made for espionage, theft of government property and obstruction of justice charges. The consensus was to proceed with a formal criminal investigation. Six months later, the senior FBI agent in charge of that investigation resigned from the case and retired from the FBI because he felt the case was going “sideways”; that’s law enforcement jargon for “nowhere by design.” John Giacalone had been the chief of the New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., field offices of the FBI and, at the time of his “sideways” comment, was the chief of the FBI National Security Branch. The reason for the “sideways” comment must have been Giacalone’s realization that DOJ and FBI senior management had decided that the investigation would not work in tandem with a federal grand jury. That is nearly fatal to any government criminal case. In criminal cases, the FBI and the DOJ cannot issue subpoenas for testimony or for tangible things; only grand juries can. Giacalone knew that without a grand jury, the FBI would be toothless, as it would have no subpoena power. He also knew that without a grand jury, the FBI would have a hard time persuading any federal judge to issue search warrants. A judge would perceive the need for search warrants to be not acute in such a case because to a judge, the absence of a grand jury can only mean a case is “sideways” and not a serious investigation. As the investigation dragged on in secret and Donald Trump simultaneously began to rise in the Republican presidential primaries, it became more apparent to Giacalone’s successors that the goal of the FBI was to exonerate Clinton, not determine whether there was enough evidence to indict her. In late spring of this year, agents began interviewing the Clinton inner circle. When Clinton herself was interviewed on July 2 — for only four hours, during which the interviewers seemed to some in the bureau to lack aggression, passion and determination — some FBI agents privately came to the same conclusion as their former boss: The case was going sideways. A few determined agents were frustrated by Clinton’s professed lack of memory during her interview and her oblique reference to a recent head injury she had suffered as the probable cause of that. They sought to obtain her medical records to verify the gravity of her injury and to determine whether she had been truthful with them. They prepared the paperwork to obtain the records, only to have their request denied by Director Comey himself on July 4. Then some agents did the unthinkable; they reached out to colleagues in the intelligence community and asked them to obtain Clinton’s medical records so they could show them to Comey. We know that the National Security Agency can access anything that is stored digitally, including medical records. These communications took place late on July 4. Current Prices on popular forms of Silver Bullion When Comey learned of these efforts, he headed them off the next morning with his now infamous news conference, in which he announced that Clinton would not be indicted because the FBI had determined that her behavior, though extremely careless, was not reckless, which is the legal standard in espionage cases. He then proceeded to recount the evidence against her. He did this, no doubt, to head off the agents who had sought the Clinton medical records, whom he suspected would leak evidence against her. Three months later — and just weeks before Clinton will probably be elected president — we have learned that President Barack Obama regularly communicated with Clinton via her personal email servers about matters that the White House considered classified. That means that he lied when he told CBS News that he learned of the Clinton servers when the rest of us did. We also learned this week that Andrew McCabe, Giacalone’s successor as head of the FBI Washington field office and presently the No. 3 person in the FBI, is married to a woman to whom the Clinton money machine in Virginia funneled about $675,000 in lawful campaign funds for a failed 2015 run for the Virginia Senate. Comey apparently saw no conflict or appearance of impropriety in having the person in charge of the Clinton investigation in such an ethically challenged space. Why did this case go sideways? Did President Obama fear being a defense witness at Hillary Clinton’s criminal trial? Did he so fear being succeeded in office by Donald Trump that he ordered the FBI to exonerate Clinton, the rule of law be damned? Did the FBI lose its reputation for fidelity to law, bravery under stress and integrity at all times? This is not your grandfather’s FBI — or your father’s. It is the Obama FBI. Reprinted with the author’s permission.

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Islamic State guerrilla attacks point to its future strategy

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian and Iraqi forces closing in on the last scraps of Islamic State s caliphate straddling the remote border area between the two countries have already witnessed the jihadists likely response. While their comrades mounted last stands in their Syrian capital of Raqqa and the city of Hawija in Iraq, IS militants seized the Syrian town of al-Qaryatayn and launched its biggest attack for months in Ramadi late last month. That is the kind of guerrilla insurgency both countries foresee IS turning to. It is expected that after the Daesh terrorist organization s capacity to fight in the field is finished, its remnants will resort to this type of (guerrilla) operation. But for a certain period of time, not forever, said a Syrian military source, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State. The continued ability for IS to mount attacks in areas where it was thought to have been eliminated will hinder efforts to stabilize regions when the fighting wanes. In Iraq, where Islamic State originated, it has a proven record of falling back upon local networks from which it can rise anew when conditions allow. So far, it has not shown it has the same capacity in Syria, and it might find doing so more challenging there than in Iraq. The sectarian divisions on which it thrives are less pronounced in Syria, and it faces competition there for jihadist loyalty from other powerful militant groups. Daesh is in essence an Iraqi organization, it will survive to some extent in Iraq. Syrian members will dissolve in other Syrian Salafi jihadist groups, said Hisham Hashami, an adviser on Islamic State to the Iraqi government. But in both countries it has shown it can exploit holes left by overstretched enemies to carry out spectacular attacks - the one in Syria s al-Qaryatayn most clearly - that spread panic and tie down opposing forces. It has also proved able to carry out bombings and assassinations in areas controlled by the Iraqi and Syrian governments, U.S.-backed Kurdish militias and rival jihadist rebel groups, signaling an ability to survive underground. A jihadist from a Syrian rebel faction opposed to Islamic State said the group had won enough support among young men to give it a latent capacity to revive. I believe that it is possible, given that its ideology has spread widely among the youths, that something new will emerge, the jihadist said, pointing to the highly effective propaganda machine deployed by Islamic State over the last three years. The al-Qaryatayn attack began on the evening of 29 September, when up to 250 militants with guns, rockets and mortars spread around the area with terrible speed , said Ayman al-Fayadh, a resident. It was particularly alarming because the government had declared al-Qaryatayn safe months ago, and had helped its residents to move back into their homes. When the jihadists were finally forced out after three weeks of fighting around the outskirts of al-Qaryatayn, they took their revenge, slaughtering scores of its inhabitants. They were very bloodthirsty and didn t spare anyone, Fayadh said. The Syrian military source said it took three weeks to retake the town because it was inhabited and the army was trying to avoid civilian casualties. However, the attack showed how towns in Syria s deserts, where armed forces can be spread only thinly, are vulnerable to Islamic State and that such operations can tie down opposing armies. People are afraid of Daesh returning, said a Syrian journalist who visited the town this week. They killed anyone who had taken part in pro-government protests. Bodies had been thrown in streets and in wells. Fayadh also said townspeople were among the attackers, indicating that Islamic State used its years of rule to build local support networks and establish sleeper cells for future attacks - something that could be replicated elsewhere in Syria. They re going to continue to have to look for places where they can plan and finance and resource and launch their attacks from, said Colonel Ryan Dillon, spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, noting Islamic State had often used sparsely populated areas . The assault on Ramadi took place three days before. Militants attacked Iraqi security forces with suicide car bombs, mortars and machine guns in a city that it had apparently lost months earlier. The big challenge in both Iraq and Syria is to co-opt the Sunni Arab tribes, or risk a revival of jihadist insurgency. The Suuni-Shi ite divide has plagued Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 that ignited the civil war. Shi ite parties backed by Iran have dominated the government and used militia forces against mostly Sunni insurgents. The Syrian government may have the same problem. It is allied to the region s main Shi ite powers - Iran and militia groups such as Lebanon s Hezbollah - and led by a president, Bashar al-Assad, from a Shi ite offshoot sect. It will also be a challenge for the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance in northern Syria, which is spearheaded by Kurdish groups. They have sometimes struggled to convince Arabs that it will protect their interests. It all depends on the degree to which those fighting under Assad and the SDF incorporate settled tribes into governing structures, said Andrew Tabler, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East policy. Even in northwestern Syria, where rebel groups including jihadist factions hold sway, hardship and insurgent infighting might create space for Islamic State to again seize ground. Beside the al-Qaryatayn attack, a group of Islamic State fighters have managed to take a pocket of territory in rebel-held areas near Hama in recent weeks, battling a rival jihadist group for control of several villages. It has used bomb attacks and assassinations to target government-held cities in the west, Kurdish security forces in the northeast and Islamist rebel factions in the northwest. In the isolated enclave it holds in Yarmouk camp south of Damascus, it has also shown renewed aggression, taking over the headquarters of a neighboring rebel group this month by force. The jihadist rebel said he believed Islamic State could repeat the strategy it used in Iraq last decade of retrenching when under attack, then rebounding in more virulent form. In this period of weakness, Islamic State depends on the ideology that it spread, the jihadist said. It appears that the same experience is being repeated. They could carry out bombings, a guerrilla war.

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Australia's High Court rejects challenge to vote on same-sex marriage

Melbourne (Reuters) - Australia s High Court rejected two legal challenges on Thursday against a proposed postal ballot on whether to legalize same-sex marriage, clearing the way for a vote on an issue that has wide support but which has also threatened to divide the government. Australians will now begin voting in the non-compulsory ballot as early as next week, with a result expected some time in November. The court s decision to reject the legal challenges, both of which argued that the center-right government needed the support of parliament to hold the ballot, comes as a welcome relief for Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Turnbull supports same-sex marriage, as do two-thirds of Australians, but his government holds a razor-thin majority and more conservative elements in his Liberal-National coalition have used the issue to threaten his leadership. Some conservative lawmakers threatened to resign if the court ruled against the proposal, while more liberal members said they would side with the Labor opposition to secure same-sex marriage before Turnbull offered the postal vote as an alternative. A rejection would have led to increased pressure on Turnbull to hold a vote in parliament, which has already twice rejected a national ballot. Every Australian can have a say and we can, as a Commonwealth of Australia, embrace this important social change, Turnbull told parliament in Canberra after the court s decision was announced. Turnbull has said Australia s Marriage Act would be changed by the end of the year if the public backed same-sex marriage in the postal ballot. Although the court s verdict provides a viable pathway to same-sex marriage, advocates fear an escalation in an already vitriolic campaign. Turnbull called for mutual respect last month as the issue gathered heat. Opponents of same-sex marriage launched a contentious No campaign advertisement last week that the government immediately rejected as inaccurate. Activists fear a surge in malicious campaigning for the ballot, which is not a formal election and is therefore not subject to the usual rules on political advertisements. Many supporters of same-sex marriage in Australia had backed the legal challenges, insisting that the campaign would hurt people who were already vulnerable, but said they would now support the ballot. We now get out there and campaign long and hard for a Yes vote, Alex Greenwich, co-chair of Australian Marriage Equality, told reporters in Melbourne. When we win this, we can all come together, having finally achieved marriage equality.

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Republican leader plans Senate vote on healthcare next week: media

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell plans to bring his party’s latest legislative effort to replace Obamacare up for a vote in the Senate next week, a number of media outlets reported on Wednesday. “It is the leader’s intention to consider Graham/Cassidy on the floor next week,” a spokesperson for McConnell said, according to Politico.

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WATCH Trump Absolutely CRUSH His Wife In Viral Video Clip From Inauguration

Many people have long suspected that Trump is abusive, if for no other reason than he s outwardly abusive to so many people. His Twitter feed alone is rife with abuse. He seems to take pleasure in hurting people, and that appears to include his family, because abusers abuse everyone in one form or another.During his inauguration, as he stood facing Melania, he apparently said something extremely hurtful to her. She s smiling and, if you look at his cheeks, he seems to be smiling too, and then suddenly, his smile disappears and he turns pointedly away from her. You can see from the change in her expression that whatever he said just crushed her.Watch below:Wouldn t he want the world to see how happy the two of them are, even if it is a fa ade? What could she have possibly done to warrant this, anyway? Say she really did do something worthy of rebuke he could have, and should have, waited until they were alone to say something to her. The way he did it wasn t just crushing to her, it was probably also humiliating for her.That wasn t the only time he was demeaning, either. When he greeted the Obamas prior to his inauguration, he left her behind in the car, and then left her behind again to walk into the White House. It was President Obama and Michelle who actually escorted Melania inside.But that s where Trump gets satisfaction in shaming and humiliating people as much as possible for even the slightest transgressions. Typical emotionally abusive behavior. Some may say she knew what she was getting into when she got involved with him, but that s victim-blaming, and it comes from those who don t get it.It s extremely unlikely Melania deserved whatever he said to her, or his self-satisfied, deliberately supercilious manner when he turned his back on her.Featured image by Kevin Dietsch via Getty Images

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Hillary Planning Her Escape After a Trump Win With a $1.8 BILLION Money Transfer to QATAR

Email It appears Bill and Hillary Clinton are making plans to flee the country in the event Donald Trump wins this election. Reports are circulating that the Clinton’s have transferred 1.8 Billion dollars from the Clinton Foundation to the Qatar Central Bank via a facilitation/abatement of JP Morgan Chase & Company for reasons not revealed. This move of such a large sum of money to the country of Qatar says in itself Hillary Clinton knows she is going to lose the election, and she doesn’t plan to allow her or Bill to be prosecuted for various high crimes and treason under a Trump Administration. The country of Qatar happens to be one of a handful of countries that does not have an extradition treaty with the United States, thus would be a perfect place for her to run to in escaping justice. Donald Trump has said many times during his campaign and at the Presidential debates that once he gets into office he intends to prosecute her on various high crimes from her latest crimes of sending classified material via a personal e-mail server to gun-running to terrorist groups in Syria resulting in the deaths of 4 Americans in Benghazi. Apparently, Hillary is not the only person in Washington who has made plans to escape justice under a Trump Administration, John Kerry has quietly been selling his property in the US for millions of dollars of late, with an announcement of the sale of his $25 million Nantucket mansion in June 2016 as well as the sale of his yacht for $3.9 million in July 2016. President Barack H Obama has also apparently been making exit plans with his purchase of a $4.9 million seaside mansion in Dubai in January 2016, another non extradition country. Snopes and other supposed fact checking sites have debunked both the story of Obama’s purchase of the mansion and the firing of Rear Admiral Rick Williams, however over the last several months these sites have been busted for lying in trying to debunk such information as the before mentioned, when in fact the information is true. Snopes and other sites try their best to keep incriminating information from being believed, but the truth has a way of coming out on its own, as it always has. The Bush family has been quietly buying property as well with the purchase of 100,000 acres in Paraguay in 2006, yet another country good for the Bush family, since it does not allow extradition to any country if the death penalty is a possibility for the crime. If the corruption is found to go as far back as both of the Bush Administrations with any connections to them being the perpetrators of the events on 9-11, the death penalty would surely be a stipulation of any extradition request. Apparently, if things get going with prosecuting the corrupt and treasonous, the Bush’s plan on getting out of the country as well. Interestingly, the Bush family’s Nazi connections dating back to WWII seem to have played a part in the Paraguay purchase since most Nazis fled to South America after WWII. Since George H. W. Bush’s father Senator Prescott Bush was director and shareholder in companies that were connected with institutions financially backing the Nazis, the Bush family has a long history of being associated with Nazis. With the movement of huge amounts of funds, selling millions of dollars in real estate, and the purchase of millions in real estate overseas, we are seeing the plans of the corrupt in Washington who have been ripping of our country in the trillions, murdering US citizens in the thousands, and citizens in foreign countries by the millions since 9-11 finally realizing their crimes against humanity is about to be exposed. We are also witnessing the change from what amounts to nothing more than a Nazi Dictatorship in Washington to an actual Presidential Administration who not only will look to the Constitution as the basis of all laws, but one who is going to prosecute the criminals in our government and return it to being a government by the people, for the people, and of the people of the USA. Not the Dictatorship over the people, to the people and who disregards the people as we now have in power.

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Endlich: Esso-Tankstellen bieten jetzt auch veganes Benzin an

Donnerstag, 17. November 2016 Endlich: Esso-Tankstellen bieten jetzt auch veganes Benzin an Hamburg (dpo) - Veganer müssen beim Tanken künftig keine Kompromisse mehr eingehen: Die Tankstellenkette Esso hat heute das erste Benzin in Deutschland präsentiert, das komplett ohne tierische Fossilbestandteile auskommt. Ab sofort ist das Veganbenzin an sämtlichen Esso-Tankstellen für derzeit 12,93 Euro pro Liter erhältlich. "Für dieses Benzin musste vor 200 Millionen Jahren garantiert kein Tier sterben", erklärt Florian Barsch, der Vorstandsvorsitzende von Esso Deutschland, bei der Vorstellung des neuen Treibstoffs in Hamburg. Dafür sorgt eine neue revolutionäre Filtertechnik, mit der sich tierische Bestandtteile rückstandslos aus Erdöl entfernen lassen. "Übrig bleibt dann ein rein veganes Rohöl auf der Basis von prähistorischen Pflanzen wie etwa Algen, Kreidezeit-Avocados oder Jura-Rucola", so Barsch. "100 Prozent dinosaurierfrei!" Veganes Benzin sei nahezu genauso leistungsfähig wie herkömmlicher Treibstoff und garantiert für jeden Wagen verträglich. "Vielleicht sind Geschmack und Geruch nicht hunderprozentig wie beim Original, aber wir kommen schon sehr nahe dran." Gleichzeitig kündigte Barsch an, im Falle eines erfolgreichen Marktstarts von Veganbenzin auch eine gesonderte Variante für Ovo-Lacto-Vegetarier anzubieten, in der beispielsweise Stegosaurus-Eier oder Raptormilch enthalten sind. Schließlich wollen manche Kunden nicht komplett auf tierische Bestandteile verzichten, wenn es ums Wohl ihres Autos geht. Auch aus dem bei der Herstellung des veganen Treibstoffs als Nebenprodukt anfallenden Tieröl soll in den nächsten Monaten ein besonders potenter Kraftstoff mit Barbecue-Aroma (ebenfalls 12,93€/l) entwickelt werden, mit dem Esso vor allem männliche SUV-Fahrer begeistern will. pfg , dan, ssi; Foto unten: Shutterstock Artikel teilen:

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Email Hack Details Movements of Joe Biden, Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton - The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Hackers on Thursday posted hundreds of emails from a young Democratic operative that contained documents detailing the schedules and precise movements of the vice president, the first lady and Hillary Clinton during recent campaign and official political events. The emails included names and cellphone numbers of numerous Secret Service agents, spreadsheets with the names and Social Security numbers of campaign donors, and PowerPoint presentations showing directions for where officials like Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. should walk when they arrived at events. The hackers who posted the emails also distributed what they claimed was a scanned image of the information page from Michelle Obama’s passport, though the authenticity of the image could not be verified. The emails were stolen from the personal Gmail account of the Democratic operative, Ian Mellul. They reveal how widely White House officials, Clinton campaign operatives and Secret Service agents have exchanged detailed and sensitive information with people using personal email accounts. There is no indication that Mr. Mellul, 22, who was in effect working as a freelancer when the White House or the Clinton campaign needed help, did anything wrong, and government officials declined to talk about the use of the private account. About a year and a half’s worth of emails from Mr. Mellul’s account were posted late Wednesday by the website DCLeaks. com, which earlier this month released a batch of emails from the personal account of Colin L. Powell, the former secretary of state, in which he voiced his scorn for Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, and his personal peeves with Mrs. Clinton, his Democratic opponent. The newly released emails do not provide specific security details, but they do reveal the types of movements that top political officials make at such events. If emails were hacked before an event, that could present a more serious security issue. One document instructed Mr. Biden to walk up four steps at a loading dock in Cleveland before climbing 26 steps to a holding room. Another used blue arrows to show the route Mrs. Clinton should walk through a donor’s house in Houston. Both documents included pictures of the event locations. Mr. Mellul, who volunteered to work as an advance staff member for the White House and the Clinton campaign as he finished his undergraduate education at George Washington University in Washington, declined to comment. “I’ve got to hang up,” he said Thursday when reached on his cellphone. Cathy L. Milhoan, the director of communications for the Secret Service, said the agency was “aware of the alleged email hacking of a White House staffer. “Obviously the Secret Service is concerned any time unauthorized information that might pertain to one of the individuals we protect, or our operations, is allegedly disclosed,” she added. An F. B. I. spokesman said the bureau was looking into the hacking. Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said that officials took “any reports about a cyberbreach seriously” and that the episode was “something we are taking a close look at. ” DCLeaks. com is a relatively new website that has posted documents taken from the accounts of prominent figures like Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, the former commander of NATO forces in Europe, and George Soros, a wealthy backer of liberal causes. On the site, its creators describe themselves as American “hacktivists” who aim to “publish a large amount of emails from officials and their influence agents all over the world. ” Mr. Mellul hardly fits either description. His job ranks just above that of an intern. The emails from his account document the often mundane process that White House or campaign staff members go through to prepare for an event, including setting up stages, organizing photo lines, arranging for lecterns and coordinating with the Secret Service about getting clearances for all of the people the politician will encounter along the way. One email contained a spreadsheet with the names and Social Security numbers of almost 100 people scheduled to attend a Houston for Mrs. Clinton. In another exchange, a Secret Service agent discussed how many official “pins” would be provided for hotel staff members to have access to an event. After Mr. Mellul said the hotel had requested 50 Secret Service pins, the agent wrote, “Yikes. ” Several of the emails contain what is referred to as a “movement document” or a “site diagram” involving the vice president, the first lady or Mrs. Clinton. Those emails were often sent to a large number of people, including Mr. Mellul. In other cases, Mr. Mellul emailed copies of the documents to other campaign or government officials, including Secret Service officials. “Good morning all,” Mr. Mellul wrote on May 20, the day of a Hillary for America . “Please find the attached site diagram for Houston’s H. F. A. finance event this evening. Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns. Ian. ” The emails begin in February 2015, when Mr. Mellul was in the honors program and studying political science. In the messages, Mr. Mellul comes across as a conscientious and courteous young man whose friends would email him for help with their school essays and résumés. After high school, he jumped into the intern circuit that feeds into jobs in Washington. In 2014, he received a coveted internship at the White House and later parlayed the connections he had made as an intern into freelance work for the White House. His tryout, it appears, was helping Mrs. Obama’s team at a lunch for congressional spouses on April 15, 2015. In an email two days before the event, Lindsay Drewel, a Washington public relations executive, wrote to Anthony R. Bernal, the deputy chief of staff for Jill Biden, the vice president’s wife, that if Mr. Mellul “can survive that crazy event (which we know he will) he’ll be ready to go! Haha. ” After the event, Mr. Mellul even included a Secret Service agent in his round of emails thanking those with whom he had worked. And the day after the lunch, the first lady’s office reached out again to see if he could help with an event in Virginia. Mr. Mellul was excited, and in an email to a friend later that day, he noted that he had been told “it takes a few good before they really trust you. ” On April 20, 2015, five days after his first job with Mrs. Obama’s team at the congressional lunch, Mr. Mellul described himself as “on the advance team” for the first lady in an email to his professor saying he might miss class because of an event.

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A Texas Woman ‘Voted Like a U.S. Citizen.’ Only She Wasn’t. - The New York Times

When Rosa Maria Ortega was a teenager, her mother was deported to her native Mexico after being arrested twice. As she grew up, Ms. Ortega decided to take a different route. Lacking a high school diploma, she signed up for the Job Corps at age 18 and snagged a position at a state employment office. In 2012, she registered to vote, and not only cast ballots in the next two elections but served as a poll worker. Divorced, she raised four children, now teenagers, sometimes working three jobs. “When my mom was here, she did everything illegal,” Ms. Ortega, 37, said in an interview. “I wasn’t going to let that happen to me. ” She may not have a choice. Ms. Ortega, of Grand Prairie, Tex. a suburb between Dallas and Fort Worth, is a permanent resident with a green card, but she is not an American citizen. In a case that made national headlines last month, she was found guilty, fined $5, 000 and sentenced to eight years in prison because the ballots she cast in 2012 and 2014 were illegal. While holders have many of the rights of citizens, they cannot vote. If the verdict is upheld, she will serve her sentence and, in all likelihood, be deported to Mexico. For holders, a criminal conviction is effectively a ticket for deportation. Her punishment may be unprecedented for an offense that often draws a minimal sentence or probation. Ms. Ortega, who has a education and a sometimes shaky grasp on the complexities of her life, has steadfastly insisted that she did not know she was violating the law — that she is being imprisoned and probably deported for the crime of being confused. “I thought I was doing something right,” Ms. Ortega said. “It wasn’t to hurt somebody, or the state, or the government. I even worked for the government. “I voted like a U. S. citizen,” she said. “The only thing is, I didn’t know I couldn’t vote. ” The case resonates in a polarized political environment where some are convinced that immigrants threaten to upend the nation’s shared values more than they continue its long history of accepting and assimilating outsiders. Ms. Ortega’s lawyers say they believe the severity of the sentence stems from the furor over immigration and false claims about voter fraud raised by Donald J. Trump’s nationalistic presidential campaign. One of Ms. Ortega’s lawyers, Domingo Garcia, said the case also raised questions about equality in the justice system. He cited a case three years ago in Fort Worth, in which a boy from a wealthy white family was sentenced to probation for a crash that killed four and seriously injured two. The boy’s lawyers argued that he was so spoiled that he did not realize that there were limits on his behavior, the now notorious “affluenza” defense. Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican who brought the fraud charges, has applauded Ms. Ortega’s sentence, saying that it “shows how serious Texas is about keeping its elections secure. ” Ms. Ortega said she had voted for Mr. Paxton as well as Mitt Romney, President Barack Obama’s Republican rival in 2012, after being persuaded by the conservative father of her fiancé, Oscar Sherman. The outlines of Ms. Ortega’s offense are mostly undisputed. While living in neighboring Dallas County, she registered to vote before the 2012 election, checking a box on the registration form that certified that she was a United States citizen. After voting in 2012 and 2014, she moved to Fort Worth’s Tarrant County in 2015, where she registered to vote again — this time, ticking the box that indicated she was not a citizen. When her registration was rejected, she called elections officials, telling them that she had voted in Dallas. Told that people who checked the noncitizen box were ineligible to vote, she reapplied, this time indicating that she was a citizen. An elections worker who remembered her earlier comment about voting in Dallas became suspicious, and forwarded the application to the authorities. Ms. Ortega was jailed on charges of voting fraud, a felony, and false statements on a registration application, a misdemeanor. State prosecutors argued that her actions and statements showed that she had intended to break the law, although they offered no explanation of why she would have sought to vote illegally. A jury of 10 women and two men convicted her of the fraud charges, but the misdemeanor has yet to be adjudicated. After a month in jail, she was released on bail. Her four children have been placed with an with whom she has scant contact. Ms. Ortega’s lawyers are casting her as a scapegoat. The case, they say, was manufactured to prop up Mr. Trump’s baseless claims and an law by the Texas Legislature that tightens qualifications for voting. Federal courts have ruled that the latest version of that law discriminates against Latinos and other groups that tend to favor Democratic candidates. In the court of public opinion, they have had some success. Ms. Ortega’s conviction has drawn an outcry in editorials and from advocacy groups. Supporters contributed several thousand dollars to an online aimed at supporting her family while she was imprisoned. Ms. Ortega’s fate rests not with the public but with a Texas appeals court. Should her lawyers fail to win a new trial, they have one more option: an appeal to the Fort Worth judge who oversaw her trial and conviction. The judge can reduce Ms. Ortega’s sentence to probation, a decision that would give federal immigration officials legal discretion to rescind her deportation, assuming no other problems crop up. But that option may be closing. On Friday, the Tarrant County criminal district attorney, Sharen Wilson, a Republican who has worked with Mr. Paxton’s office on Ms. Ortega’s prosecution, notified defense lawyers of a meeting on the misdemeanor charge of falsely filing a registration application. A decision to prosecute her on that charge could complicate any effort to avoid her deportation, another of Ms. Ortega’s lawyers, Clark Birdsall, said. A spokeswoman for Ms. Wilson, Samantha Jordan, declined to comment on Ms. Ortega’s case, but said the meeting was a routine status conference. By registering and voting, Mr. Birdsall said, Ms. Ortega hoped to give her children a course in citizenship. “Her whole act of voting was an example to her kids,” he said. “She told them, ‘This is what you’re going to be doing. You have to have your voice heard. ’” Ms. Ortega said they had come away with an entirely different lesson.

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A New Bill In Missouri Would Allow Your Employer To Fire You For Using Birth Control

In a move that will most likely never be described as progress, the state of Missouri has voted to pass SB 5, a bill that among other controversial and oppressive laws, would permit employment and housing discrimination against women who use birth control or choose to have an abortion. The bill passed by the Senate tonight is a good start, Will Scharf, policy director for Missouri Governor Eric Greitens, wrote on Twitter. Looking forward to seeing how the House can substantially improve it to protect life! The main reason behind SB 5 is to impose more restrictions on abortion providers in the state, such as requiring them to send fetal tissue samples to a pathologist within five days, the pathologist then having 72 hours to respond. Currently there are no deadlines, but despite the bill being supported under the guise of women s health, requirements such as this serve absolutely no medical purpose whatsoever. Furthermore, the move will just impose more costs, both monetary and bureaucratic, on abortion clinics, ultimately forcing them to eventually close down, which was the goal all along.But there are even more disgusting, farther-reaching repercussions of SB 5 The bill overturns a St. Louis ordinance that prevented discrimination from employers and landlords against people based on their reproductive health decisions. To put it bluntly, if the bill is passed, women could be fired or evicted in Missouri for having an abortion, using contraception, or becoming pregnant while unmarried.The ordinance that was passed in February had its share of opposition. Archbishop Robert Carlson released a statement criticizing the passing of the ordinance as a terrible moment for a city with such proud history, adding The laws of the city of St. Louis now actively protect and promote the killing of unborn children. Thomas Buckley, general counsel to the Archdiocese, said the ordinance promotes religious discrimination against those who don t want to be complicit in the evils of abortion. He then took it a step further, saying The Archdiocese will not and cannot comply with this. We will go straight to federal court. That is not far removed from what they did. And they won. Soon in Missouri if an employer has a problem with a female staff member s use of contraception, which is about 99% of sexually active women between the ages of 15-44, their employment could be terminated and landlords could even deny them a home.Featured image via Alex Wong/Getty Images

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OFF HER ROCKER! MAXINE WATERS: Trump Has ‘Tendency to Talk Down to People of Color’ [Video]

Rep. Maxine Waters (D., Calif.) Monday accused President Donald Trump of having a tendency to target women and people of color for his ire.Waters spoke uninterrupted for almost four minutes on MSNBC s The Beat about the Trump Administration s handling of the aftermath of Army Sgt. La David Johnson s death in Niger. She called on Trump and his Chief of Staff John Kelly to apologize to widow Myeshia Johnson and Rep. Frederica Wilson (D., Fla.), going on to criticize Trump s disrespect for women and minorities in general. He seems to have this tendency to talk down to people of color, to treat them with disrespect, and I think this adds to it, Waters said. First of all, he called [Wilson] wacky. Secondly, that he didn t back down, that he simply talked about her in a way that was not respectful I think that yes, I think this adds to the suspicion of him and the way that he thinks about minorities and black people in particular. She said Kelly was also wrong in her criticism of Wilson s 2015 speech, and she said she had the backing of the Congressional Black Caucus in saying the Trump Administration needs to do more to respect black women. All of the women of the Congressional Black Caucus have come together and we re demanding an apology, she said. We re sick and tired of women being undermined, dismissed, and black women, in particular, being called names. Waters also criticized Trump s overall leadership. He has the most distorted leadership of any president I ve ever known or heard about, Waters said. Here he had the opportunity to make the condolence call, to do it properly, to recognize this family and their grieving, and also to know the name of the soldier who had been killed. It is so unconscionable in the way that he manages his leadership, she added.Waters also said Kelly s credibility has been damaged. General Kelly has had a good career, and to have his career basically undermined by the president of the United States because he s trying to protect the president and stand up for the president when the president did not deserve to be stood up for, now he s damaged himself, Waters said. He needs to call the congresswoman and apologize.

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Election 2016 Endgame: Vote!

License DMCA We're getting down to the wire. It's been a tough haul. Actually, the campaign season has felt endless. But now is not the time to drop the ball. In the days remaining, it is essential to motivate other voters who may be sitting on the fence -- or are too disgusted -- to go to the polls about why that option is not viable. Actually, it's dangerous. Their voices are crucial. Personally, it's hard for me to understand how the issue of climate change can be put on the back burner by any American. Maybe I feel the urgency so deeply because I have been writing about the environment for five years. Okay, and the mother thing definitely kicks in; wanting to protect my kid, other people's kids, and future generations. Still... it goes beyond that. It's about the birds that are dying, the wildfires ignited by droughts, the chemicals in water that was previously used for fracking and are now irrigating our country's fruits and vegetables. It encompasses the flooding, record temperatures, the lack of environmental justice for those who live in low-income communities, and the famines causing mass migration. Every time I write an article, it's with the hope of putting a spotlight on a concern folks may not know about. I hope someone new is "going to get it." - Advertisement - It's tough when you are up against the big-money boys of the fossil-fuel industry and their supporters like the Koch brothers (who have their fingers in everything from Grand Canyon National Park to campaign funding). Yup, your state's Attorney General, who is elected and tasked with being the "People's Lawyer," may be one of those people who have received money to jump on the lawsuit to derail the Clean Power Plan. Most of the media has dropped the ball on featuring stories on climate change and its ramifications. When guests appear on shows spouting disinformation, most interviewers don't push back. News stories with hard scientific facts don't get traction because they may not be "sexy." Well, there's nothing sexy about extreme weather. Just ask people who have been the victims of hurricanes, including New York City and environs. Homes destroyed, businesses wrecked, Manhattan subways deluged with water. Unfortunately, too many Americans still don't get how climate change is the catalyst behind the challenges -- both now and in the future -- for America's health, economy, and national security. It can be hard to hear that message when ads pushed by the American Petroleum Institute and individual oil companies (like Chevron and Exxon) are busy promoting the agenda that Americans have no choice except to choose between a robust economy and clear air. - Advertisement - Okay, I'm not naïve enough to expect the fossil-fuel industry to elevate the conversation about renewable energy. They don't want to promote what the growth of a green economy has to offer in terms of building a viable new job sector, that can implement change and employ workers. Donald Trump has made outrageous statements about the environment. Both he and Mike Pence are on the record as being climate deniers. Oh, and Trump wants to get rid of the EPA. Great. With no regulations on the table, big polluters will be able to get away with toxic dumping the same way Trump "legally" avoided paying taxes (see " Halliburton Loophole "). Who will suffer? Not the Exxon executive who didn't want fracking in his backyard . It will fall to everyday Americans who be unaware of the toxins in the air, chemicals in the products they buy and ingest, unborn children at risk in the womb, and low-income communities and people of color who live daily without environmental justice. The list goes on.

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Brazil environmentalist Marina Silva to run for president in 2018

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Former Brazilian senator and environmental minister Marina Silva said on Saturday that she would seek her party s nomination to run for president next year. Silva announced her plans at a meeting of her Sustainability Network Party, or REDE, which would officially nominate her at its national convention in April. The 59-year-old environmentalist, born into a rubber-tapping community in the Amazon rainforest, was minister under former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. She has run in the previous two presidential elections but never made it to a second-round vote. Silva said she would seek her party s nomination because Brazilians want a country free of corruption and that she had the ethical bearings to deliver on that. Supporters have praised her as Brazil s most principled politician, which could play a large role in the next election. Since early 2014, Brazilian prosecutors and police have carried out an unprecedented anti-corruption drive that has revealed political graft touching every major party, but not Silva s. Silva has remained committed to fiscal responsibility, inflation targeting and a floating exchange rate, the so-called tripod of economic policies that gave Brazil stability after a period of rampant inflation and erratic growth in the 1990s. In the latest election survey conducted by the respected Datafolha polling institute and published Saturday on the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper s website, Silva ranked third, with 10 percent of respondents saying they would vote for her. But that poll included Lula as a possible candidate. Lula was convicted in a corruption trial in July. If a higher court upholds that conviction before the October election, he could not run. Without Lula, the Datafolha poll had Silva trailing right-wing candidate Jair Bolsonaro, a federal lawmaker who won 21 percent approval, compared with her 16 percent. Datafolha interviewed 2,765 voters across Brazil on Nov. 29-30. The poll had a two-percentage-point margin of error. In the 2010 election, Silva, then with the Green Party, took a surprising 20 percent of the first-round vote, but it was not enough to push her into a runoff with eventual winner Dilma Rousseff. In 2014, she ran for vice president on the Brazilian Socialist Party ticket headed by Eduardo Campos, who died when his campaign plane crashed just two months before the election. Silva took his spot and won 21 percent in the first round, again missing out on a runoff.

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BELGIUM’S POLITICAL LEADER Michaël Modrikamen Makes Powerful Video Endorsing Donald Trump…WARNS Against Muslim Migrant Invasion: “America should not become another Brussels”

This video was published on March 11, 2016, exactly 11 days before the terror attack took place in Brussels. Micha l Modrikamen, president of the Peoples Party in Belgium says he fully supports Donald Trump. He asked Trump to make America great again and warned Americans about not becoming another Brussels: It was once a vibrant, entrepreneurial, joyful, peaceful city. That was before. Brussels is becoming a third world city with a majority of Muslim migrants within 10-15 years according to demographic studies.This situation is being aggravated by the current migrant system. Message from BRUSSELS. I support Donald Trump !Message from BRUSSELS. I support Donald Trump !Posted by Mischa l Modrikamen on Friday, 11 March 2016

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Os Estados Unidos vão reformar-se, ou dilacerar-se?, Thierry Meyssan

Os Estados Unidos vão reformar-se, ou dilacerar-se? Thierry Meyssan Ao observar a campanha eleitoral presidencial norte-americana, Thierry Meyssan analisa a ressurgência de um velho e grande conflito civilizacional. Hillary Clinton acaba de declarar que esta eleição não versava sobre programas, mas sobre a questão de saber «Quem são os Americanos?». Não é baseados em questões políticas que os tenores republicanos acabam de retirar o seu apoio ao seu candidato, Donald Trump, mas antes a propósito do seu comportamento pessoal. Segundo o nosso autor, até à data presente, os Norte-americanos eram emigrantes vindos de horizontes diferentes e aceitando submeter-se à ideologia de uma comunidade especial. É este modelo que está em vias de se desfazer, com o risco de estilhaçar o próprio país. Rede Voltaire | Damasco (Síria) | 26 de Outubro de 2016 français Español italiano русский English Deutsch ελληνικά Türkçe عربي No decurso do ano de campanha eleitoral norte-americana que estamos a acabar de atravessar, a retórica mudou profundamente e uma clivagem inesperada surgiu entre os dois campos. Se, à partida, os candidatos falavam de assuntos basicamente políticos (tais como a repartição de riqueza ou a segurança nacional), agora eles tratam principalmente de sexo e dinheiro. Foi este discurso, e não as questões políticas, o que fez explodir o Partido Republicano –-cujos principais líderes retiraram o apoio ao seu candidato–- e que reformula o tabuleiro político, fazendo ressurgir uma clivagem civilizacional muito velha. De um lado, a senhora Clinton pretende ser politicamente correcta, enquanto do outro «O Donald» fez voar em estilhaços a hipocrisia da antiga «primeira Dama». De um lado, Hillary Clinton promove a igualdade homens/mulheres, muito embora ela jamais tenha hesitado em atacar e emporcalhar as mulheres que revelavam ter-se deitado com o seu marido; que se apresenta não pelas suas qualidades pessoais, mas enquanto esposa de um anterior presidente, e que ela acusa Donald Trump de misoginia porque ele não esconde o seu gosto pela espécie feminina. Do outro lado, Donald Trump denuncia a privatização do Estado, e a extorsão de personalidades estrangeiras pela Fundação Clinton, sempre que queriam obter acesso ao Departamento de Estado; a criação do ObamaCare, não no interesse dos cidadãos mas para benefício dos Seguros médicos; e vai até ao ponto de pôr em causa a idoneidade do sistema eleitoral. Estou perfeitamente ciente que a maneira como Donald Trump se exprime encoraja de facto o racismo, mas não acho de todo que isto esteja no centro do debate eleitoral apesar do martelar que os média(mídia) pró-Clinton fazem a propósito. Não é indiferente que, aquando do escândalo Lewinsky, o presidente Bill Clinton tenha apresentado as suas desculpas à Nação e tenha reunido Pastores para rezar pela sua salvação. Enquanto ao ser posto em causa por factos parecidos, numa gravação áudio, Donald Trump se tenha contentado a apresentar as suas desculpas às pessoas atingidas, sem fazer apelo a membros do clero. A clivagem actual retoma a revolta de valores dos Católicos, de Ortodoxos, e de Luteranos, contra os dos Calvinistas, representados nos Estados Unidos principalmente pelos Presbiterianos, Baptistas e os Metodistas. Mesmo se os dois candidatos foram educados na tradição puritana (Clinton como Metodista e Trump como Presbiteriano), H.Clinton retornou à religião pela morte do seu pai e participa hoje em dia no grupo de oração dos chefes do estado-maior das forças armadas, The Family («A Família»- ndT), enquanto Trump segue uma espiritualidade mais interiorizada e não frequenta habitualmente os templos. É claro, ninguém fica fechado nos padrões em que foi criado. Mas, quando se age sem reflexão, podemos reproduzi-los de forma inconsciente. A questão do ambiente religioso de cada um pode portanto ser importante. Para entender o que está em jogo, é preciso voltar à Inglaterra do século XVII. Oliver Cromwell derruba, com um golpe de Estado militar, o rei Carlos Iº. Ele pretendeu instaurar uma República, purificar a alma do país, e assim fez decapitar o antigo soberano. Criou um regime sectário inspirado nas ideias de Calvino, massacrou os Irlandeses papistas em massa, e impôs um modo de vida puritano. Concebeu também o sionismo: ele chamou à atenção para os judeus em Inglaterra e foi o primeiro chefe de Estado, no mundo, a reivindicar a criação de um Estado judeu na Palestina. Este episódio sangrento é conhecido com o nome de «Primeira Guerra civil britânica». Após a restauração da monarquia, os Puritanos de Cromwell fugiram da Inglaterra. Eles instalaram-se nos Países Baixos, de onde alguns de entre eles partiram a bordo do Mayflower para as Américas (os chamados “Pais Peregrinos"), enquanto outros fundaram a comunidade Afrikaner na África Austral. Aquando da guerra de independência dos Estados Unidos, no século XVIII, reviu-se o confronto dos Calvinistas contra a Monarquia britânica, de tal modo que nos manuais actuais de História Britânica, designam-na como a «Segunda Guerra civil». No século XIX, a Guerra de Secessão opôs os Estados do Sul (sobretudo habitados por colonos católicos) aos do Norte (principalmente habitados por colonos protestantes). A História dos vencedores apresenta este confronto como uma luta pela Liberdade face à Escravatura, o que é pura propaganda (os Estados do Sul aboliram a escravatura durante a guerra, quando fecharam uma aliança com a monarquia britânica). Com efeito, regressa-se ao enfrentamento dos Puritanos contra o Trono inglês, razão pela qual certos historiadores falam aqui de uma «Terceira Guerra civil britânica». Durante o século XX, este enfrentamento interno da civilização britânica parecia ultrapassado, fora o ressurgimento dos Puritanos ao Reino Unido com «os cristãos não-conformistas» do primeiro-ministro David Lloyd George. Estes últimos dividiram a Irlanda e dedicaram-se a criar o «Lar nacional judaico» na Palestina. Seja como fôr, um dos conselheiros de Richard Nixon, Kevin Phillips, consagrou uma volumosa tese a estas guerras civis, constatando que nenhum dos problemas estava resolvido e anunciou uma quarta volta [ 1 ]. Os adeptos das Igrejas calvinistas, que desde há 40 anos votavam maciçamente pelos Republicanos, apoiam agora os Democratas. Eu não duvido que H. Clinton será a próxima Presidente dos Estados Unidos, ou que se Trump fosse eleito, ele seria rapidamente eliminado. Mas, em alguns meses, assiste-se a uma ampla redistribuição eleitoral sobre o fundo de uma evolução demográfica irreversível. As Igrejas vindas dos Puritanos não somam mais que um quarto da população e basculam para o campo Democrata. O seu modelo aparece como um acidente histórico. Ele já desapareceu na África do Sul e não poderá sobreviver ainda por muito mais tempo, nem nos Estados Unidos, nem em Israel. Para além da eleição presidencial, a sociedade dos EUA deve evoluir rapidamente ou irá dilacerar-se novamente. Num país onde o juventude rejeita maciçamente a influência dos pregadores puritanos, não é mais possível mover a questão da igualdade. Os puritanos idealizam uma sociedade onde os homens são todos iguais, mas não equivalentes. Lorde Cromwell queria uma República para o Ingleses, mas só depois de ter massacrado os papistas Irlandeses. É assim que actualmente nos Estados Unidos, todos os cidadãos são iguais perante a lei mas, em nome dos mesmos textos, os tribunais condenam sistematicamente negros enquanto encontram circunstâncias atenuantes no caso de brancos tendo cometido crimes ou delitos equivalentes. E, na maioria dos Estados, uma condenação penal, mesmo por um excesso de velocidade, basta para retirar o direito de voto. Por conseguinte, brancos e negros são iguais, mas em alguns Estados, a maioria dos negros tem legalmente sido privada do seu direito de voto. O paradigma deste pensamento, em política externa, é a «solução de dois Estados» na Palestina: iguais, mas acima de tudo não equivalentes. Foi o pensamento puritano que orientou as administrações do Pastor Carter, de Reagan, de Bush (o Sr. e o Jr. são dois descendentes directos dos “Pais Peregrinos”), de Clinton e de Obama a apoiar o wahabismo, em contradição com os ideais propagados pelo seu país, e hoje em dia a apoiar o Daesh(E.I.). No passado, os “Pais Peregrinos” fundaram comunidades em Plymouth e Boston, que foram mitificadas na memória colectiva americana. Contudo os historiadores são rigorosos. Eles afirmavam construir o «Novo Israel» e escolheram a «Lei de Moisés». Eles não colocaram a Cruz nos seus templos, mas, sim as Tábuas da Lei. Muito embora cristãos, atribuíam mais importância às Escrituras Judaicas que aos Evangelhos. Eles obrigaram as suas mulheres a tapar a cabeça com véu e restabeleceram os castigos corporais. Thierry Meyssan Tradução Alva

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France releases brother of ex-Burkina president Compaore

PARIS (Reuters) - A court in Paris on Monday released the younger brother of former Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore pending consideration of a request by the Burkinabe government to have him extradited, his lawyer and a judicial source said. Police detained Francois Compaore at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris on Sunday on an international arrest warrant related to the 1998 murder of Norbert Zongo, who published Burkina Faso s Independent newspaper. The killing of Zongo, who had been investigating the murder of a driver who worked for Francois Compaore, became a symbol of repression during Blaise Compaore s 27-year rule, which ended in 2014 at the hands of a popular uprising. Francois Compaore is barred from leaving France until a court examines an extradition request by Burkina Faso s government, said a judicial source, speaking on condition of anonymity. Compaore s lawyer Pierre-Olivier Sur said the charges against his client are politically motivated by a Burkinabe government unable to try Blaise Compaore, whom the government of neighboring Ivory Coast refuses to extradite. Blaise Compaore fled to Ivory Coast during the uprising. He faces an international arrest warrant in connection with the 1987 murder of former President Thomas Sankara. Activists are pushing President Roch Marc Christian Kabore to aggressively pursue cases of past human rights abuses. Critics say his government has been too slow to move against former government members, some of whom serve in the current administration.

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Trump Doubles Down On Being An Ass To Australia, And Twitter BUTCHERS Him (TWEETS)

Trump isn t smart. He s a complete buffoon with a temper that s so short it s virtually nonexistent. But he likes to pretend he s the President of the United States, which means he thinks he s this country s sole leader. As such, he believes he can do and say as he wishes, even if it means alienating people, countries and groups that we need.During a phone call to Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Trump threw a livid fit over an agreement we reached with them under Obama to accept 1,250 refugees. Trump accused Australia of planning to send us the next Boston bomber, and promptly hung up. Then, instead of staying quiet or actually (gasp) doing some basic homework and admitting he made a mistake with that, he took to Twitter to double down:Do you believe it? The Obama Administration agreed to take thousands of illegal immigrants from Australia. Why? I will study this dumb deal! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 2, 2017First of all, 1,250 is not thousands. Secondly, refugees are not illegal immigrants and Trump s calling them such is dangerous. Third, how can they be illegal immigrants if they aren t even here yet, and have permission, via a diplomatic pledge and paperwork, to come here? And fourth, he s not the deal-maker he thinks he is if he believes being a jackass to Turnbull is the way to handle this.Fortunately, here s Twitter, coming to the rescue and giving Trump a much-needed dressing down in front of the whole world:@realDonaldTrump Jesus. They re refugees. And Obama agreed to take them in, so they re not illegal. Tom Coates (@tomcoates) February 2, 2017And there it is, confirmation that Trump really did insult Australia today. @realDonaldTrump https://t.co/nBbcR8AZx4 Charles Johnson (@Green_Footballs) February 2, 2017@realDonaldTrump We have a deal to review 1,250 refugee applications. You re deliberately deceiving people and it s really worrying. Hank Green (@hankgreen) February 2, 2017Who haven t I pissed off yet? Australia?! Oh I got this. @realDonaldTrump https://t.co/OMX0rANHfe Keegan Stephan (@KeeganNYC) February 2, 2017.@realDonaldTrump The Australian immigrants are Muslim refugees literally living in detention camps but nah it s not a Muslim ban. Keegan Stephan (@KeeganNYC) February 2, 2017I wonder if this is related, @realDonaldTrump. pic.twitter.com/mCTGSibbCr David G. McAfee (@DavidGMcAfee) February 2, 2017.@realDonaldTrump You should ve studied it before it was written in your immigration executive order. You re confessing to incompetence. Lawrence O Donnell (@Lawrence) February 2, 2017.@realDonaldTrump I m sorry, hun. I m not mad. You just don t know better. But every time you learn new information, don t go nutso online. Bess Kalb (@bessbell) February 2, 2017@TVMaury @Tat2Metal @NastyWoman20 @wslayher @bessbell @realDonaldTrump Jesus Christ. I went out for ?.You guys couldn t keep him from a war? Colleen H (@ColleenHolt20) February 2, 2017@realDonaldTrump You should build a wall on the border with Australia, that ll stop them coming over and taking our kangaroos. Mark Pygas (@MarkPygas) February 2, 2017.@realDonaldTrump Good plan, but it s worth studying the facts *before* you tweet. https://t.co/QdijGh5Jz9 pic.twitter.com/fPtlTZ5GV1 Chris Choi (@thischoi) February 2, 2017By the way these illegal immigrants Trump is ranting about? They re actually refugees. @realDonaldTrump https://t.co/nBbcR8AZx4 Charles Johnson (@Green_Footballs) February 2, 2017@realDonaldTrump if we agreed to take them, then they ARE NOT ILLEGAL. Brandon Keating (@BrandonTalks) February 2, 2017@realDonaldTrump Please! You would only study if the book had pictures coloring sections. Tony Posnanski (@tonyposnanski) February 2, 2017@realDonaldTrump An honorable president would honor US commitments, regardless. Mike Elgan (@MikeElgan) February 2, 2017@AmyOtto8 when Australia sends their kangaroos, they aren t sending their best kangaroos. Comfortably Smug (@ComfortablySmug) February 2, 2017@realDonaldTrump The Prime Minister of Australia just said on national tv that you agreed to the deal he made with Obama. Are you lying? Michael Skolnik (@MichaelSkolnik) February 2, 2017@doctorcherokee @iamkawsar @MichaelSkolnik @realDonaldTrump He called it dumb and said he didn t read it. erin lynn o connor (@erinoface) February 2, 2017@realDonaldTrump why write this on twitter. I don t get it? Are you a 15 year old or are you having a meltdown? Aron Price (@aronpricePGA) February 2, 2017@Tooda @realDonaldTrump HA! Donald? Briefings? Come on. James Alexander (@Tasselguy) February 2, 2017@realDonaldTrump You pissed off Antarctica yet? Make sure you enrage the whole planet before the week is over. Matt Besser (@MattBesser) February 2, 2017@realDonaldTrump Do you really not know the difference between illegal immigrants and refugees Dave Levitan (@davelevitan) February 2, 2017@realDonaldTrump you. are. so. fucking. stupid. Jen Statsky (@jenstatsky) February 2, 2017@realDonaldTrump they re refugees fleeing persecution, you know, like the first settlers in America. But don t let facts cloud ur ignorance Craig Wilson (@mediahunter) February 2, 2017@realDonaldTrump Australia agreed to send thousands of troops to support US in overseas combat over many wars & years. Study THAT. #allies Lisa Hurring (@Hypocaffeinic) February 2, 2017@realDonaldTrump you build your wall. We have our own barrier reef. It s the best. Huge. Really huge. The finest barrier you ve ever seen. Mike Cannon-Brookes (@mcannonbrookes) February 2, 2017Too bad the Great Barrier Reef is nearly dead thanks to asshats like Trump who keep saying climate change is a hoax. They re one of the reasons we weren t able to work to save the Reef.Maybe when he s done with Australia, he can go to work on Canada? Maybe the U.K., or any one of our other close allies. Perhaps he ll bomb Antarctica for being one of the worldwide sites for the Women s March on Jan. 21. This man-child needs his Twitter account canceled and his phone taken away. He s going to get us destroyed.Featured image by Michael Reynolds via Getty Images/screen capture

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BUSTED! Maxine Waters’ Ties to Black Nationalist Hate Group Further Exposed [Video]

We reported that Maxine Waters and members of the CBC met with Louis Farrakhan but we now know that she also was a guest at Farrakhan s Nation of Islam convention! Louis Farrakhan and his Nation of Islam are as un-American and hateful as you can get. They are anti-semites and believe that whites are inherently inferior. Farrakhan often preaches hate for the West and for whites and Jews.NOTICE HOW MAXINE WATERS IN THE RED IS GREETED BY FARRAKHAN AT THE 3:40 MARK:Daily Caller reports:Democratic California Rep. Maxine Waters attended a Nation of Islam convention where the hate group s leader, Louis Farrakhan, defended Palestinian suicide bombers.The convention, which took place in California in 2002, is just the latest tie to emerge between Democrats and the Nation of Islam, a black nationalist group known for being viciously anti-Semitic. We have Maxine Waters here, Farrakhan told the convention audience, gesturing to the seats behind him, our great congresswoman from this area. The audience cheered Waters name.Later in his speech, Farrakhan excused Palestinian suicide bombers and defended Iran for arming Palestinian terrorists.OUR PREVIOUS REPORT ON THE CBC MEMBERS WHO MET WITH FARRAKHAN:WATCH members of the Black Caucus, who were all caught on video embracing one of the most openly hateful racists of our time, Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam in a newly released video.The new images and videos show Congressional Democrats, some of whom are still serving, warmly embracing Farrakhan in 2006 at a church in New Orleans. The footage was brought to light by columnist Jeryl Bier. Bier has been tweeting the following images and video of the encounterAmericans were shocked when an Obama image recently emerged that was kept a secret by the photographer who took it because he believed it would hurt the future president s political career. Here is that image that was hidden from the public:Wall Street Journal journalist Jeryl Bier was the first to break this story:2006, in a side room off a church foyer in New Orleans:@LouisFarrakhan: Tell me how I can be of service. @RepMaxineWaters: I think we need to get together and talk about how we re going to put New Orleans on the national agenda. https://t.co/Z3w9cpLTnf pic.twitter.com/YPXf0NMaPS Jeryl Bier (@JerylBier) January 30, 2018The woman who screams Impeach Trump almost every time she opens her mouth, and had made several attempts at trying to label President Trump as a racist with absolutely no evidence, Democrat Black Caucus member, Maxine Waters is seen hugging one of the most notorious racists in America, Louis Farrakhan:Here are a few more Democrat Black Caucus members seen hugging race baiter and hate mongerer Louis Farrakhan.Democrat Rep. William JeffersonDemocrat Rep. Barbara LeeDemocrat Rep. Al Green

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White House cracks down on use of charter planes by officials

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Friday cracked down on government officials using charter aircraft following the resignation of health secretary Tom Price over his use of private planes for government business. In a memo to government agencies, White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney said commercial air travel is “appropriate” with few exceptions even for very senior officials, and the use of chartered aircraft must be approved in advance by the White House chief of staff.

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Election Day Questions

Recipient Email => Dear Mexican: Why is it that even though we Latinos have similar backgrounds (Indian-Spanish) across America , there is a lack of unity among us here in the USA ? We could be a powerhouse during election times, and definitely obtain a more friendlier immigration deal. El Peruano Dear Cholo: I usually only answer preguntas about Mexicans, but I’ll make an exception here because of Election Day. And it hierve down to this: Who wants to be united? Latinos certainly don’t. Nowhere except Cuba is a country of the same political thought—and look how good it’s working out for them. Although the Mexican’s politics are Marxist of the Grouch variety, I’m also of the escuela that we need Latino conservatives, anarchists, vendidos , progressives, libertarians, Zapatistas, sinarquistas (ok, maybe not them)—all political thoughts. Such diversity keeps us in balance, teaches us about democracy, and will make us stronger as gabachos continue to align themselves into puritanical camps of caca . Let us squabble away—oh, and #fucktrump. In America , the candidates for president spend millions of dollars in other peoples’ money for a job that could never pay that money back. Is it the same for Mexican candidates, or does it even matter, since those fucking Mexicans can never get the elections right anyway? Conservative, but #fucktrump Dear Gabacho: For most of the 20th century, Mexican presidents came from the PRI, and their method of picking a new leader was simple: el dedazo . The finger—not flipping the pájaro , but a symbolic pointing of the finger toward someone. Yeah, that’s totally corrupt—but at least we don’t spend billions of dollars like fucking gabachos who can never get their elections right anyway, you know? Oh, and #fucktrump. GET OUT EL VOTO !: Gentle cabrones , the Mexican doesn’t endorse candidates not named Alfred E. Neumann (source of the greatest quote EVER: “English is a language in which double negatives are a no-no!”), but I can tell you who NOT to vote for: Donald Trump, and anyone supporting the pendejo . He represents the greatest threat to raza since NAFTA, an agreement he claims to hate but only says that to gain gabachos votes to toss Mexicans across the Rio Grande with a deportation cannon. Hillary Clinton is nowhere near the perfect candidate, and the Mexican won’t be voting for her because she’s the beneficiary of the Democratic Party own dedazo system—but even a candidate as terrible as her is un chingo better than Trump. If you vote for her, no hate on my part—just tell her to hold her tacos right. More importantly, vote in your local elections, and RESEARCH. Don’t just vote for the people with the paisa name—sometimes, our own people are worse to Mexicans than any Trumpbot. And if you can’t vote because you’re undocumented? Volunteer for those politicos who are striving for amnesty and who oppose walls. May you celebrate Election Day with one giant fiesta instead of tragos amargos . Oh, and #fucktrump. Ask the Mexican at themexican@askamexican.net, be his fan on Facebook, follow him on Twitter @gustavoarellano or follow him on Instagram @gustavo_arellano!

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Jackboots! Heavily Militarized Police Caught Red Handed In Collaboration With Oil Companies -

Via Alternet Today’s militarized crackdown on water protectors in Cannonball, North Dakota stems from high levels of coordination between the extractive industry, state officials and police departments. It was waged against a frontline camp seeking to block the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), which would cross beneath the Standing Rock Sioux reservation’s main drinking water source and bisect the community’s burial grounds. The attack took place under cover of a media blackout, with reports emerging that police were disrupting cellular phone reception. Water protectors have already endured dog attacks, military-style checkpoints, low-flying surveillance planes, invasive strip searches, national guard deployments, and mass arrests. “What’s happening today is a travesty on the human rights of Indigenous people,” Tom Goldtooth, the executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, told AlterNet. “I see this as glaring evidence that the law enforcement of this county and state is more concerned about protecting corporate rights of the extractive industry than tribal nations.” There is evidence of close coordination between the companies backing the $3.8 billion crude-oil Dakota Access Pipeline and police departments. Energy Transfer Partners, the parent company for Dakota Access LLC, said Tuesday it intends to work with police to forcibly clear a frontlines water protectors’ camp. Energy Transfer Partners threatened that “in coordination with local law enforcement and county/state officials, all trespassers will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and removed from the land.” Challenging the company’s charges of trespassing, the frontline Sacred Stone Camp says it is taking back “unceded territory affirmed in the 1851 Treaty of Ft. Laramie as sovereign land under the control of the Oceti Sakowin.” “We have never ceded this land,” Joye Braun, an organizer with the Indigenous Environmental Network, said in a press statement. “If DAPL can go through and claim eminent domain on landowners and Native peoples on their own land, then we as sovereign nations can then declare eminent domain on our own aboriginal homeland.” Today’s events indicate that Energy Transfer Partners is not bluffing when it says police are siding with the company. In fact, law enforcement has vocally rallied behind the pipeline, which is backed by Enbridge. “At some point the rule of law has to be enforced,” Cass County Sheriff Paul Laney said Wednesday, according to the Associated Press. “We could go down there at any time. We’re trying not to.” The companies backing the pipeline already have private security under their employ. Dakota Access LLC confirmed to AlterNet in September that it had hired the notorious multinational security firm G4S during a period that overlapped with the protests, but would not state where its forces were located. Attorneys representing the Standing Rock encampments identified the companies behind the Dakota Access company’s brutal dog attacks, captured on video, as private security firm 10-Code Security, LLC and attack dog contractor Frost Kennels. But according to Peter Kraska, professor and author of Militarizing The American Criminal Justice System: The Changing Roles of the Armed Forces and Police , the extractive industry also has taxpayer-funded security, in the form of police. “We have romantic notions of the relationships between government and the private sector and tend to think the old days of police supporting owners of capital—the railroad companies instead of the workers—are from a bygone era,” Kraska told AlterNet. “Situations like these show that corporations and energy interests are exercising a monopoly on violence to continue the fossil fuel industry unabated.” Steven Salaita, professor and author of the forthcoming book Inter/Nationalism: Decolonizing Native America and Palestine , put it this way: “The current buildup of tremendous force at Standing Rock should be understood as a military invasion of a sovereign nation on behalf of a foreign oil company.” The heavy-handed response does not stem from local coordination alone. The Morton County Sheriff’s Department said in a press statement released Sunday that, “Due to escalated unlawful tactics by individuals protesting the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, Morton County has requested additional law enforcement assistance from other states. The state of North Dakota made an Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) request to states for assistance on October 7th.” Remarkably, the EMAC program is supposed to be used to allow “states to send personnel, equipment, and commodities to help disaster relief efforts in other states.” According to the Morton County Sheriff’s Department, “Several states have responded and have arrived or will be arriving to support Morton County. States that are currently assisting Morton County are: Wisconsin, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wyoming, Indiana and Nebraska.” AlterNet could not immediately reach Morton County for comment. In Minneapolis, news that local law enforcement officers were being sent to Standing Rock sparked protests on Wednesday. The Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that, “At the request of the State of North Dakota, and as approved by the State of Minnesota, on Sunday, Minnesota Sheriff’s Deputies from the Hennepin, Anoka, and Washington Counties’ Sheriff’s Offices were deployed to assist in Morton County, North Dakota.” Those counties cover the bulk of the Twin Cities area, where local police been accused of placing protesters in danger, through a far-reaching culture of incitement against the Black Lives Matter movement. In one incident, St. Paul police officer Jeff Rothecker was forced to resign in February after he was caught encouraging drivers to run over Black Lives Matter protesters slated to gather for a Martin Luther King Day mobilization. Lt. Bob Kroll, the head of the Minneapolis Police Officer’s Federation who has ties to a white-power-linked biker gang, has repeatedly referred to protesters as “terrorists.” As police departments around the country send reinforcements to North Dakota, the appeals of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe for federal protection from law enforcement violence appear to have had no effect. In a letter sent to Attorney General Loretta Lynch earlier this week, the water protectors asked the Department of Justice to intervene. “To many people, the military tactics being used in North Dakota are reminiscent of the tactics used against protesters during the civil rights movement some 50 years ago,” the letter states. “But to us, there is an additional collective memory that comes to mind. This country has a long and sad history of using military force against indigenous people—including the Sioux Nation.” Sarah Lazare is a staff writer for AlterNet. A former staff writer for Common Dreams, she coedited the book About Face: Military Resisters Turn Against War . Follow her on Twitter at @sarahlazare . About Lara Starr

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TRUMP EXPOSES TRUTH ABOUT WHY U.S. STATE DEPT CHOOSES MUSLIM SYRIAN REFUGEES OVER CHRISTIANS [Video]

It s not just Trump who s exposing the truth about the hundreds of thousands of muslims being sent to our country where they have no intention of assimilating. Expert Ann Corcoran tells us the truth about why our State Dept. is bringing mostly muslims over here in video below. Over the past several years Syrian Christians have been desperately trying to smuggle themselves out of Syria as ISIS tells them to convert or die.The Obama White House sa far has ignored their desperate plight.It is also widely known that Barack Obama has been absent as thousands of Iraqi and Syria minority populations have been persecuted and slaughtered by ISIS.Today in Las Vegas Donald Trump attacked the Obama administration s policies that have allowed thousands of Syrian Muslims in the country while Christians from Syria suffer.https://youtu.be/KdmTpHE7ZoUIf you re worried Donald may not have his facts straight on this issue, listen to our friend and expert on the US State Department s Refugee Resettlement Program, Ann Corcoran explain how it works. You will be SHOCKED:

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Former Finance Minister Schaeuble elected to head German parliament

BERLIN (Reuters) - Former German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble was elected president of Germany s Bundestag or lower house of parliament, on Tuesday at its first session after Sept. 24 elections. Schaeuble, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel s conservatives, agreed last month to step aside as finance minister, clearing the way for another party to take the job as part of tricky negotiations to forge a new coalition government. Schaeuble, 75, is known for his hardline insistence on a balanced budget and his leadership during the euro zone crisis, but he faces new challenges in leading the Bundestag, which will include a far-right party - the Alternative for Germany (AfD) - for the first time in decades.

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Syrian rebels say U.S. allies push for retreat from southeast Syria

AMMAN (Reuters) - Two Western-backed Syrian rebel groups fighting the Syrian army and Iranian-backed militias in southeastern Syria have been asked by their Western and Arab backers to pull out of the area and retreat into Jordan, rebels and diplomatic sources said on Sunday. Both Usoud al-Sharqiya and Martyr Ahmad Abdo, part of the Free Syrian Army group, said they were told to end fighting in the area by their backers from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and neighboring states that support them, which include Jordan and Saudi Arabia. There is a official request for us to leave the area, said Badr al Din al Salamah, a senior official in the Usoud al Sharqiya group, one of the main rebel groups in the area and a recipient of the military aid from the U.S.-backed alliance. Since early this year, the rebels have pushed Islamic State militants out of a large swathe of sparsely populated territory stretching some 50 km (30 miles) southeast of Damascus, all the way to the Iraqi border along the frontier with Jordan. But an offensive by the Syrian army, backed by Iranian militias and heavy Russian air cover, has encircled the rebels and eroded their gains. In recent weeks, the army has regained a string of border posts with Jordan that it had abandoned in the early years of the conflict Western diplomatic sources said the request was tied to a decision by the administration of U.S. President Trump in July to halt the CIA s program to equip and train rebel groups fighting the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The CIA program began in 2013 as part of efforts by the administration of then-President Barack Obama to overthrow Assad. The Trump administration says its strategy in Syria is focused only on defeating Islamic State. In a letter purportedly to rebel commanders and seen by Reuters, they were told they although they had fought bravely to fend off the Syrian army, their presence in a small enclave now posed a threat to them. The decision has caused disaffection among hundreds of fighters in the two groups, who consider withdrawing into Jordan as effectively disbanding their forces. The two groups, who have hundreds of fighters, will have to hand over heavy artillery and dozens of U.S.-made anti-tank missiles that played a part in their battlefield successes against Islamic State and the Iranian-backed militias, rebels say. In a meeting on Saturday, the rebel commanders told the joint operations center in Jordan that requested their withdrawal they would rather stay and die in the desert than leave the battlefield. We have rejected the request, since if we entered Jordan we would consider it the end ... the blood of our martyrs has not dried yet, said al-Salameh. The military operations center has not offered them a choice to move to a U.S. garrison further east near the border with Iraq in Tanf, the rebels say. That garrison, run by a separate program of the Pentagon, hosts an Arab rebel tribal group known as the Maqhawir al Thwra. Another rebel official said they were not necessarily opposed to withdrawing, but they wanted assurances from Jordan they could lobby to expand to the Badia area a U.S.-Russian-brokered ceasefire, which has halted fighting in southwest Syria. Washington and Jordan are currently negotiating with Moscow to implement a de-escalation zone that would push back Iranian-backed forces 40 kms north of the border strip with Jordan, diplomats say. We have accepted in principle and there are matters that have to be resolved. But until this moment there is no final agreement on withdrawing and we are still in the Badia and still fighting and in our posts, said Said Seif, a spokesman of the Martyr Ahmad Abdo group.

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Computer Programmer Admits To Being Paid To Rig Voting Booths

GUTS: Town Defies Obama, Unanimously Votes Against Refugees When he responded affirmatively, he was asked, “How do you know that to be the case?” “Because in October of 2000 I wrote a prototype for present Congressman Tom Feeney, at the company I work for in Oviedo, Florida, that did just that,” Curtis said. “It would flip the vote 51 – 49 to whoever you wanted it to go to, and whichever race you wanted it to win.” “And would that program that you designed be something that elections officials , that might be on county boards of elections, could detect?” Arnebeck asked. “They’d never see it,” Curtis said. “You would have to view it either in the source code, or you’d have to have a receipt, and then count the hard paper against the actual vote total. Other than that, you won’t see it.” You can watch the video for yourself here: Computer Programmer Testifies Under Oath He Coded Computers to Rig Elections Posted by Anonymous on Thursday, March 17, 2016 Given the stakes in this election, and the poll rigging that we’ve already seen, what Curtis said should have a lot of resonance with American voters — especially Trump voters. While the man that Curtis purportedly wrote it for was a Republican, establishment Democrats could clearly do something very similar if given the opportunity.

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Study: American Adults Having Less Sex than a Quarter of a Century Ago - Breitbart

A new study released Tuesday shows that American adults are having less sex than a quarter of a century ago, with the biggest decline being among married people. [The study, published in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior, showed a decline in sexual activity across gender, race, region, education level, and work status. One of the factors for this decline is the increase in the percentage of unpartnered people, who tend to have less sex than partnered ones. But a major factor for this decline stems from a steady decline in the rate of sexual activity for people who are married or living with partners. The study found that American adults have sex seven to nine fewer times per year than in the 1990s, according to data from the General Social Survey from . The average person used to have sex 60 to 62 times a year in the 1990s, but by 2014 that number dropped to less than 53 times per year. The drop in sexual activity among married people was even sharper, going from 73 times a year in 1990 to 55 in 2014. The frequency of sexual activity among married people was below that of unmarried people, who have sex an average of 59 times a year. The study said people who are not in couples, including those married in the past, have sex half as much as those who are. The decrease in couples backs up this claim. Americans were living with a partner in 1986 in 2014, only 59 percent were, according to GSS data. The report listed possible factors for the decline in sexual activity, including increased access to entertainment and social media a decline in happiness among people 30 and over higher incidence of depression and use of associated with sexual dysfunction. The study found a steady drop in sexual activity as people aged, but when comparing the same time period in each generation, it turns out that those born in the 1930s had sex the most often, while those born in the 1990s had sex the least. The sharpest decline in sexual activity was among people in their 50s, people with a college degree, people with children, people in the South, and those who do not watch pornography, according to the study.

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OUTRAGEOUS! NANCY PELOSI Claims Obamacare Honors “Vision of Our Founders” [Video]

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LOL! PRINCE of Country Who Gave Hillary $50 Million BEGS Americans NOT To Vote For Trump

Sounds like one of the best reasons ever TO vote for Trump A Saudi prince has urged Americans not to vote for Donald Trump in the upcoming general election.Turki al-Faisal, who served as Saudia Arabia s ambassador to the US from 2005 to 2007, spoke against the presumptive Republican nominee during a foreign policy dinner in Washington, DC on Thursday.He blasted Trump s proposal to ban Muslims from entering the US, which the billionaire first formulated in December last year before renewing his vow on Wednesday. For the life of me, I cannot believe that a country like the United States can afford to have someone as president who simply says, These people are not going to be allowed to come to the United States, Turki said according to the Huffington Post. It s up to you, it s not up to me, Turki added. I just hope you, as American citizens, will make the right choice in November. This plea to NOT vote for Trump should come as no surprise since Saudi Arabia has donated up to $50 million to the Clinton FoundationWFB The gulf nations represent three of the largest donors to the foundation, but that is hardly the extent of their ties to the Clintons. Qatari, UAE, and Saudi firms paid Bill Clinton millions of dollars for speeches during the time Hillary served as secretary of state, when she also approved weapons deals with all three countries worth billions of dollars to U.S. defense firms, many of which are also Clinton Foundation donors.Bill Clinton has praised the Qataris as intelligent, forward looking investment partners for their collaboration on Clinton Foundation projects. One of Hillary s top advisers, Cheryl Mills, served on the board of the New York University campus in Abu Dhabi. Bill Clinton is the friend and former classmate of Saudi Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, who recently attended a lavish Clinton Foundation conference in Marrakech, hosted by the King of Morocco. The Bill Clinton presidential library in Little Rock was funded in part by a $10 million from the Saudi Royal family.Turk, who went to Georgetown University in Washington, DC, isn t currently part of Saudia Arabia s government but serves as the chairman of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, a cultural organization that conducts research in politics, sociology and heritage. h/t: Breitbart News Via: Daily Mail

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Trump Stoops To A New Low: My Rallies ‘Are The Safest Places A Child Could Be’

Looking back at all of the offensive, ridiculous things that Republican front runner Donald Trump has said over the past few months, it seems that Trump would probably have a more promising career in stand-up comedy than politics. But unfortunately for the rest of us, Trump is still a leading presidential candidate for the Republican party and continues to say more insane, delusional nonsense every day.One of the latest Trump ramblings reveals just how little Trump cares about the safety of America s youth. Maureen Dowd recently wrote a column about the front runner, pulling from a recent interview she had with Trump. Like every interview the business mogul partakes in, it s absolutely insane.Trump performed his typical bullying tactics, from insulting total whack job Megyn Kelly and attacking Elizabeth Warren before hilariously denying that he was a misogynist or racist. Trump said, Honestly, I m with the people. The people like Trump. While that s pretty bad, the most shocking part of the interview came when Trump spoke about his rallies, which have become infamous for their violence.Despite the fact that he has absolutely encouraged violence at his rallies and even promised to protect his supporters if they attacked a protester, Trump continues to deny that his campaign events are anything but peaceful. In fact, over the last few days he has blamed the outrageously rabid behavior of his fans on both Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. Trump s dishonesty and delusion run so deep that when Trump was asked if parents should be concerned about bringing their children to rallies where cursing, physical assaults and bullying are par for the course, Trump said this: The rallies are the safest places a child could be. Trump was then questioned about a particular incident in which a man rushed the stage, causing him to visibly quiver in fear. Trump, denying that he felt he was in any danger at all, said, I got credit for that because it looked like I was moving toward him. He also said that when his protesters scream at agitators or protesters, it adds a little excitement. Clearly, Trump s rallies are NOT a safe place for a child, and it s terrifying that Trump is denying this and ENCOURAGING his supporters to bring their kids into such a chaotic, unstable environment. The scary thing is, Trump s supporters hang on to his every word and are probably too dense to know any better.While Trump continues to deny that his rallies are extremely dangerous, several more incidents of violence happened at a Tuscan, Arizona rally yesterday ironically the same day that Dowd s column about Trump was published. During the rally, a man was punched, kicked and stomped on the ground, and Trump s own campaign manager was seen grabbing the collar of a protester. Previously, Trump s campaign manager was accused of assaulting a female reporter.And those are not isolated instances. This type of violence follows Trump everywhere he and his protesters go. These attacks are sometimes racially motivated, and sometimes for no reason at all (attacks on peaceful protesters have become quite common). Suggesting that parents expose their children to the type of bigotry, racism and all-around disgusting behavior that we ve seen from Trump and his minions is despicable. Through his denial and lies, Trump has greatly endangered America s youth.Featured image via Gage Skidmore

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Kellyanne Conway, CNN’s Chris Cuomo Clash Over Alleged Russian Hacking - Breitbart

Kellyanne Conway and @ChrisCuomo clash on known information about the Russian hacking. https: . Friday on CNN’s “New Day,” Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway took on show Chris Cuomo over allegations the Russian government engaged in hacking to interfere with the last November’s presidential election. Cuomo insisted Donald Trump should acknowledge Russia’s role in the hacking. “Why won’t the acknowledge what is so clear to the intelligence community, that Russia was involved in the hacks?” Cuomo said. Conway pointed out Trump has yet to receive his intelligence briefing on the matter, which is scheduled for later in the day. She also pointed out President Barack Obama could have done more to combat the hacking at the time Director of National Intelligence James Clapper had said the Russians were responsible and argued the current discussion about the hacking was meant to delegitimize Trump. “I really believe there are those out there — there are those out there that are trying to delegitimize his presidency, review the election results and you know it,” she said. “[W]e had a president of the United States in October who could have when Mr. Clapper said what he said, could have pushed back harder but did not because what was he doing? He and Hillary Clinton and all of their teams were absolutely believing that she was going to be the next president of the United States. ” Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor

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Trump’s Tough Trade Talk Could Damage American Factories - The New York Times

HOLLAND, Mich. — While much of the American political class has been consumed with recriminations over the wrenching loss of manufacturing jobs, Chuck Reid has been quietly adding them. His company, First Class Seating, makes recliner seats for movie theaters here at a factory on the shores of Lake Michigan. Since he bought the business three years ago, its work force has grown to 40 from 15. But those jobs will be in jeopardy if Donald J. Trump follows through on his combative promises to punish countries he deems guilty of unfair trade. Mr. Trump secured the White House in part by vowing to bring manufacturing jobs back to American shores. The has fixed on China as a symbol of nefarious trade practices while threatening to slap 45 percent punitive tariffs on Chinese imports. But many existing American manufacturing jobs depend heavily on access to a broad array of goods drawn from a global supply chain — fabrics, chemicals, electronics and other parts. Many of them come from China. At Mr. Reid’s factory, imports account for roughly of the cost of making a recliner chair. In short, Mr. Trump’s signature trade promise, one ostensibly aimed at protecting American jobs, may well deliver the reverse: It risks making successful American manufacturers more vulnerable by raising their costs. It would unleash havoc on the global supply chain, prompting some multinationals to leave the United States and shift manufacturing to countries where they can be assured of buying components at the lowest prices. “If you do this tomorrow, you would have a lot of disruption,” said Susan Helper, an economist at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. “The stuff that China now makes and the way they make it, it’s not trivial to replicate that. ” Mr. Reid takes pride in using American products. His designers here in Michigan dreamed up his sleek recliner. Local hands construct the frames using steel, then affix molded foam from a factory in nearby Grand Rapids. They staple upholstery to hunks of wood harvested by timber operations in Wisconsin. They do all this inside a former heating and cooling equipment factory that shut down a decade ago when the work shifted to Mexico. But the fabric for Mr. Reid’s seats arrives from China. So do the electronics in the “magic box” that enables moviegoers to control the recliner. Ditto, the plastic cup holders and the bolts and screws that hold the parts together. The motor is the work of a German company that makes it in Hungary, almost certainly using electronics from China. Mr. Reid estimates that a 45 percent tariff on Chinese wares would raise the costs of making a recliner here by 20 percent. Tariffs would give his factory an edge against American competitors that import even more from China. But his company would be vulnerable to competitors in Mexico, Colombia and Australia. They would be free to draw on China’s supply chain and sell their wares into the American market unhindered. “Our chair would be priced out of the market,” Mr. Reid said. “If it impacts our sales, that puts jobs at risk. ” Trade experts dismiss Mr. Trump’s threat of tariffs as campaign bluster that will soon give way to pragmatic concerns about growth and employment. Between 1998 and 2006, the imported share of components folded into American manufacturing rose to 34 percent from 24 percent, according to one widely cited study. International law also limits the scope of what the Trump administration can do. Under the rules of the World Trade Organization, the United States cannot apply tariffs. It must develop cases industry by industry, proving that China is damaging American rivals through unfair practices. Talk of tariffs is “pure theater,” said Marc L. Busch, an expert on international trade policy at Georgetown University in Washington. “It’s impossible to do. It violates the rule of law. ” But Mr. Trump has suggested taking the extraordinary step of abandoning the W. T. O. to gain authority to dictate terms. His successful of Carrier, the company, which agreed to keep 1, 000 jobs at a plant in Indiana rather than move them to Mexico, attests to his priorities in delivering on his trade promises. The people advising Mr. Trump on trade have records of advocating a pugnacious response to what they portray as Chinese predations. There is Dan DiMicco, the former chief executive of the American steel giant Nucor, who has long advocated punitive tariffs on Chinese goods. There is Peter Navarro, a senior policy adviser and of a book titled “Death by China: Confronting the Dragon — A Global Call to Action. ” In an email on Friday, Mr. Navarro, the Trump transition team’s economic adviser, said that imposing steep tariffs on China was an essential step to begin to address the American trade deficit with China, which reached $365 billion last year. He blamed Chinese trade practices for “destroying entire industries, hollowing out entire communities” and “putting millions out of work. ” But Mr. Navarro also cast the threat of tariffs as an opening gambit in a refashioning of trade positions. “Tariffs are not an end game but merely one of several negotiating tools to bring our trade back into balance,” he said, adding that Mr. Trump’s administration would do so “in a measured way. ” Mr. Navarro’s Greg Autry, a professor at the University of Southern California, said he assumed the Trump camp was dead serious about its threats to impose tariffs on China. The goal is to force manufacturers to come back to the United States as a condition of selling into the American market. A trade war between the world’s two largest economies would cost American jobs in the immediate term, Mr. Autry said, but eventually millions of new ones would be created as the United States again hummed with factory work. “We moved our supply chain to Asia in about two decades,” he said. “You certainly can do it in the U. S. a whole lot faster. It’s going to take a few years, but it’s going to be a much better America. ” Even if factory work does return to the United States, though, that is unlikely to translate into many paychecks. As automation spreads, robots are primed to secure most of the jobs. At Mr. Reid’s factory, talk of a bountiful future through trade barriers resonates as dangerous nonsense. Mr. Reid has a business to run in the here and now. His customers are waiting for product. He must be able to tap the supply chain. “You can’t just turn your ship around and bring that stuff back,” he said. In threatening tariffs, Mr. Trump is wielding a blunt instrument whose impacts are increasingly easy to evade by sophisticated businesses with operations across multiple borders. The geography of global trade is perpetually being redrawn. In China, factory owners, casting a wary eye on Mr. Trump, are accelerating their exploration of alternative locales with workers across Southeast Asia and even as far away as Africa. In Vietnam, entrepreneurs are preparing for a potential surge of incoming investment from China should Mr. Trump take action. In Europe, factories that sell manufacturing equipment to China are watching to see if Mr. Trump will unleash trade hostilities that will damage global growth. “Money and goods will always find their way, regardless of what barriers you put up,” said Ernesto Maurer, chairman of SSM, a Swiss maker of textile machinery that operates a factory in China. “You just make it more difficult and more expensive. ” In the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, Jiang Jiacheng exudes confidence that China will continue to serve as the factory floor for the world — with tariffs or otherwise. His company, the Guangzhou Shuqee Digital Tech Company, makes movie chairs, exporting about 20 percent of its wares to the United States. It is an exemplar both of China’s manufacturing prowess and of the conditions that make it a competitive threat. Mr. Jiang pays his factory workers $290 a month. They work six days a week. Lax environmental rules allow him to dispose of pollutants cheaply. The total cost of making one of his products, a movie chair, runs $72. He sells it for $116 to wholesalers who export to the United States. Back in September, Mr. Jiang gathered with other Chinese movie chair manufacturers to discuss the alarming statements coming from Mr. Trump. The consensus view was not to worry. “Once he takes up the post, he will certainly return things to the normal state,” Mr. Jiang said. Still, he has a backup plan. Even before President Trump entered the lexicon, Mr. Jiang was exploring a transfer of some of his work to places like Vietnam. His company would not be the first to make the journey. A dozen years ago, the United States Commerce Department accused China of dumping wooden bedroom furniture at below cost. It imposed protective tariffs. For Lawrence M. D. Yen, who had a furniture factory in southern China, that was the impetus to move to Vietnam. Labor costs were cheaper. Today, Mr. Yen’s company, Woodworth Wooden Industries, operates a factory in Cu Chi, on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City, a district best known for the elaborate tunnels used by Vietcong guerrillas in their battles against American forces. This former hive of combat is now the workplace for 5, 000 people making sofa beds, recliner chairs and bedroom furniture. of the products are destined for the United States, including Las Vegas casino resorts like Mandalay Bay and the MGM Grand. Woodworth’s plant churns out more than 10, 000 sofas each month. This year, the company opened a second Vietnam factory. Arithmetic gives Mr. Yen confidence that Mr. Trump’s talk will be muted by the realities of the marketplace. Brands that deliver goods to American retailers have leaned heavily on Asian suppliers to secure low prices. In pledging to bring manufacturing back, Mr. Trump is effectively pitting the interests of a relatively small group of people — those who work in factories — against hundreds of millions of consumers. “The retail industry now employs an awful lot more people than apparel industries ever did,” said Pietra Rivoli, a trade expert at Georgetown. Seven years ago, the Obama administration accused China of unfairly subsidizing tires. It imposed tariffs reaching 35 percent. A subsequent analysis by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a nonpartisan think tank, calculated the effect: Some 1, 200 American jobs were preserved, but American consumers paid $1. 1 billion extra for tires. That prompted households to cut spending at retailers, resulting in more than 2, 500 net jobs lost. The TAL Group claims to make one of every six dress shirts sold in the United States. It produces finished goods for Brooks Brothers, Banana Republic and J. Crew, operating 11 factories worldwide. If Mr. Trump places tariffs on China, the company will accelerate its shift to Vietnam, said TAL’s chief executive, Roger Lee. If that trade is disrupted, the work would flow to other countries like Bangladesh, India and Indonesia. Mr. Lee can envision no situation in which the physically taxing, monotonous work of making garments will go to the United States. “Where are you going to find the work force in the U. S. that is willing to work at factories?” Mr. Lee said. Horgen, a Swiss village on the shores of Lake Zurich, seems far removed from the gritty industrial zones of Asia. With its gingerbread homes and mountain views, it looks more like a resort. But Horgen is home to SSM, a company that has become an important supplier to Asia. Its machines turn polyester and other synthetic fibers into threads. If the rise of textiles in Asia has been a gold rush, this Swiss company has been among those cashing in by making the picks and shovels. Workers at the factory earn roughly 6, 000 Swiss francs ($5, 940) a month — some 10 times what SSM pays its workers at its Chinese factory. It makes its most sophisticated components in Switzerland and at another plant in Italy. It uses China for machines. The company sells virtually all of its products abroad, chiefly in Asia. It buys metal parts from the Czech Republic and Poland, electronic components from Malaysia, and electric motors from an American company that makes them at a factory in India. Another American company supplies software. “There is not a single machine that we have that we are able to build with materials from one country,” said Mr. Maurer, the SSM chairman. If the United States were to impose trade barriers on China, that might slow Chinese demand for textile machinery. That would potentially reduce Swiss purchases of American goods and services. But Mr. Maurer struggles to see how this would create any jobs in the United States. The American textile industry is small and increasingly dominated by robots. The rest of the world holds billions of hands willing to work cheaply. “Someone else will pick up the business,” Mr. Maurer said. “These markets are very fast. ” But the textile and apparel trades are relatively simple businesses. If the cost of making trousers becomes less appealing in China, a room full of sewing machines in Cambodia can quickly be filled with seamstresses. Industries involving precision machinery are not so easily reassembled somewhere else. An abrupt change to the economics would devastate factories that could not quickly line up alternative suppliers. American automakers are especially dependent on the global supply chain. Between 2000 and 2011, the percentage of imported components that went into exported vehicles grew to 35 percent, from 24 percent, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. At EBW Electronics in Holland, Mich. workers in lab coats tend boxy soldering machines as they make circuitry for LED lights that go into cars. It buys tiny parts and slots them into circuit boards, which are sold to major automakers. Some 80 percent of the components are imported from China. Even that number fails to capture the degree to which the company — and its 240 workers — depend on unfettered trade. Pat LeBlanc, the chairman, pointed to a nib of metal on a circuit board. The silicon was extracted at a plant in Minnesota, then processed into a thin wafer at another factory in Massachusetts. The wafer was shipped to China for testing, cut into pieces at another Chinese factory, and then delivered to the Philippines for a chemical process. Then it went back to China to be put onto a reel that can be inserted into soldering machines here in Michigan. “It literally is a global supply chain,” Mr. LeBlanc said. Mr. Reid, the owner of the theater seating company, could not imagine having to buy everything from American suppliers. Buying upholstery domestically would raise his fabric costs as much as 40 percent. “All the componentry, all the cords, it all comes from China,” he said. “I don’t know that you could ever get all of that made in the United States. Some of these industries have just been abandoned. ” He wandered into the paint shop, where a worker was spraying chair backs. He picked up a can of paint and read the label: “Made in the U. S. A. with Global Materials. ”

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Donald Trump threatens to jail Hillary Clinton in second presidential debate

A cornered Donald Trump prowled the presidential debate stage on Sunday, threatening to jail an opponent he called “the devil” in a last-ditch bid to staunch his hemorrhaging campaign hopes. Swaying malevolently behind Hillary Clinton as she parried attacks on everything from her husband’s sex life to Wall Street and her foreign policy judgment, the Republican dominated the night but made little effort to seduce new voters. Instead, he began the night by assembling a group of women in a press conference to revisit alleged sexual assaults by Bill Clinton, before confronting his opponent hardest on her private email server. “OK Donald, I know you are into big diversion tonight,” shot back Clinton. “Anything to get away from your campaign and how Republicans are deserting you. “Everything you have heard from Donald just now is not true. I am sorry to keep saying this but he lives in an alternative reality,” she added. The Democratic frontrunner fired off occasional attacks of her own, accusing Trump of being in the pocket of Vladimir Putin, but looked rattled by the brutal onslaught over her record in office. Trump, embracing the spirit of the “lock her up” mob chants at his rallies, threatened: “If I win I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation – there has never been so many lies and so much deception,” he threatened. Clinton said it was “awfully good” that someone with the temperament of Trump was not in charge of the law in the country, provoking another Trump jab: “Because you’d be in jail.” “She got caught in a total lie and now she is blaming the lie on the late, great Abraham Lincoln,” added Trump as Clinton attempted to defend leaked Wall Street speech transcripts. The Republican’s leonine menace even turned on the moderators at Washington University, demanding half a dozen times why they were interrupting him but not asking tougher questions of Clinton. Within moments of the candidates meeting on stage – without shaking hands – the night sank into an ugly war of words between two nominees devoid of civility, a spectacle unlike any presidential debate in recent memory. After briefly sticking to general talking points about Barack Obama’s record and the need to “make America great again”, Trump was easily baited into a contentious exchange with Clinton. The sparring followed shortly after Trump was asked to address the recently leaked 2005 video which captured him bragging about groping women without their consent. The former reality TV star apologized, saying he was “embarrassed by it”, but brushed off as “locker room talk” the unguarded content that has sent dozens of Republican lawmakers fleeing from his candidacy. “I have great respect for women. Nobody has more respect for women than I do,” Trump said. Clinton responded that the leaked video revealed “what he thinks about women, what he does to women”. “He has said that the video doesn’t represent who he is. But I think it’s clear to anyone who heard it that it represents exactly who he is,” Clinton said. “With prior Republican nominees for president, I disagreed with them. Politics, policies, principles … but I never questioned their fitness to serve,” she added. “Donald Trump is different.” The real estate mogul was visibly fuming, scowling and pacing as Clinton spoke. Shedding any semblance of contrition over the video, Trump pounced on the indiscretions of Bill Clinton while raising unproven accusations that the former president had assaulted women. “There’s never been anybody in the history of politics that’s been so abusive to women,” Trump said. “Mine are words and his are action.” Declining to hit back, Clinton invoked first lady Michelle Obama’s memorable speech at the Democratic national convention in July: “When they go low, we go high.” But Trump was in no mood to switch gears. His rejoinder to Clinton’s criticism of Trump’s rhetoric against immigrants, Muslims, prisoners of war and women was to falsely pin conspiracy theories surrounding Obama’s birthplace on Clinton’s 2008 campaign – even though Trump rose to political prominence on a crusade to obtain the president’s birth certificate. The debate turned even chillier as the topic turned to Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state – and Trump’s bulldozing attack caused damage. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” Trump told his rival, jabbing his finger repeatedly in her direction. Clinton once again attacked Trump for his praise for Vladimir Putin and noted the repeated cyber-attacks by Russian-backed hackers in an attempt to influence the election. “The Kremlin, meaning Putin and the Russian government, are directing attacks on American accounts to influence our election. WikiLeaks is part of that,” said Clinton. She added: “Never in history has a foreign power [worked] so hard to influence outcome of election.” Trump responded by suggesting “maybe there is no hacking” and disclaimed any ties to Russia. “I don’t know Putin, I think it would be great if we got along with Russia but I don’t know Putin.” He went to insist: “I know nothing about Russia.” Only right at the end of a verbally violent 90 minutes was there a brief truce when the candidates were asked to name one positive thing about each other. “I respect his children,” said Clinton after first throwing back her head and laughing. “She doesn’t quit,” responded Trump. “She doesn’t give up. She’s a fighter and I consider that to be a very good trait.” While the debate was widely characterized as both bitter and nasty, Clinton’s campaign was confident voters were capable of discerning the difference between the two candidates. “There was only one president on the stage tonight,” Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon told reporters in the spin room. “There was only one person that showed the demeanor, the temperament, the resolve and the discipline to actually be president.” He then added of Trump: “Everything from his meandering answers on policy, which showed a complete lack of understanding on important issues like Syria and healthcare, to his body language on stage where he was menacingly stalking her during parts of her answers, suggested that this is not someone with the temperament to be president of the United States.” Jason Miller, senior communications adviser to the Republican’s campaign, argued that when Trump “turned the Honest Abe question around on Mrs Clinton that was a knockout”. Trump supporters in the spin room also stood by their candidate in the wake of the latest audio revelations. Ben Carson, a former primary season rival of the Republican nominee, insisted that when Trump made those remarks “that was a very different time in his life and at that time he was a billionaire playboy and the language that he used was consistent with that”. Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani also dismissed the wave of Republicans who had announced in the past 48 hours that they were no longer voting for Trump. “Sometimes Republicans get a little weak-kneed,” said Giuliani. “I happen to be a Republican with very strong knees.” Only two Republican officials were in the spin room to praise Trump’s performance: longtime Trump ally Senator Jeff Sessions and congressman Jason Smith of Missouri. When asked about the paucity of Republican elected officials defending Trump after the debate, Smith told the Guardian: “I am reminded of what my grandfather told me, that ‘people will hurt you a lot to help themselves a little’ and elected officials that are willing to go out and have kneejerk reactions when they are losing the focus of issues, that is the problem.” The Missouri Republican went on to dismiss those who have abandoned Trump, adding: “Most of the people who have been leaving were last to arrive and first to leave and what we have to know and remember as a party that we are fighting for principles and issues and don’t make personality such a big part.” Nigel Farage, interim leader of the UK Independence Party, was also in the spin room to defend Trump and attack Clinton as a threat to democracy. “If you value democracy and if you value being in control of your own destiny then you have to reject Hillary Clinton’s ideas. Simple,” said Farage. An hour before the debate started, Trump sought to distract attention away a newly released recording of him boasting of molesting women by staging a surprise stunt to highlight claims once made against his opponent’s husband. Despite recently claiming that he would rather the second presidential debate be about “policy” rather than “in the gutter”, the Republican nominee held the extraordinary three-minute press event with four women who have accused Bill and Hillary Clinton of wrongdoing. One of them claimed: “Bill Clinton raped me and Hillary Clinton threatened me.” Speaking in a conference room to handful of reporters in an event aired on Facebook Live, Trump appeared with Paula Jones, Juanita Broaddrick, Kathy Shelton and Kathleen Willey. Three of the four women have claimed inappropriate sexual contact with Bill Clinton, which he has denied. Shelton was the victim of a 1975 rape where Hillary Clinton was assigned by an Arkansas court to represent her assailant. The women took turns in speaking after Trump praised them as very courageous. They then joined him in the debate hall as guests. “We’re not surprised to see Donald Trump continue his destructive race to the bottom,” said Clinton spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri in response to the press conference. “Hillary Clinton understands the opportunity in this town hall is to talk to voters on stage and in the audience about the issues that matter to them, and this stunt doesn’t change that.” The press stunt came just 48 hours after a tape was released of Trump making obscene boasts about using his fame to kiss and grope women without their consent. The tape caught Trump on a live microphone with then-Access Hollywood host Billy Bush in 2005, and includes the statement “I am automatically attracted to beautiful women. I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss, I don’t even wait … and when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything.” Trump, who was then 59 years old and newly married to his third wife, Melania, added “Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.” Although the Republican nominee issued a videotaped apology after midnight on Friday, the mounting controversy has led to a growing number of Republicans to announce that they will not vote for Trump in November. These included the party’s 2008 nominee, John McCain, as well as a number of other senators in tight re-election battles including Rob Portman of Ohio and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire. Many have argued in favour of letting Trump’s running mate, Indiana’s governor, Mike Pence, fight the remainder of the election against Clinton, even though such a scenario remains highly unlikely under Republican party regulations. Trump is struggling to overcome deep scepticism among women voters, which has led to plummeting poll numbers in recent days and risks putting his chances of winning the presidency out of reach. Clinton appeared to be in a jovial mood following the debate, chatting and laughing with husband Bill and members of her staff at the front of her plane back to New York. Before departing St Louis, she came back to talk to reporters. Asked if she was aware of Trump standing behind her as she answered questions, Clinton let out a laugh. “I could tell, yes,” she said. “Well, it was a very small space and I tried to give him space when he was talking to people. I would go back and lean up against my stool, but he was very present.” She added: “I was surprised by the absolute avalanche of falsehoods. I really find it almost unimaginable that someone could stand and just tell falsehood after falsehood. “You all remember Politifact said that he was the most untruthful candidate they’d ever evaluated … I think they said he was 70% untruthful and so I think he exceeded that percentage tonight.”

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Turkish PM says EU confused since Brexit, needs to revisit Turkey's future place

LONDON (Reuters) - The European Union is entirely confused since Britain voted to leave the bloc and it needs to revisit its vision for enlargement and Turkey s place in that, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Monday. Launched in 2005 after decades of seeking the formal start of an EU membership bid, Ankara s membership negotiations have long been sensitive for France and Germany because of Turkey s status as a large, mainly Muslim country. The large purge that President Tayyip Erdogan has carried out following a failed coup attempt in July 2016 has worsened relations between Brussels and Ankara. During a visit to London, Yildirim said the European Union needed to look again at its plans to expand the bloc. After the Brexit decision the EU is entirely confused. They need to revisit their vision for the future, how far they are going to enlarge and what place Turkey will have in that. We are here. We are not going anywhere, he said. Yildirim also reaffirmed that Turkey did not believe that the crisis in neighbouring Syria could be resolved whilst President Bashar al-Assad remained in power. The current regime is responsible for the way things have evolved in Syria ... I don t think it s a realistic prospect to build lasting peace in Syria with Assad (in place), he said.

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OH NO! GUESS WHO FUNDED THE SHRINE TO TED KENNEDY

Nothing like political cronyism to make your stomach churn. Especially since it s for a scumbag like Teddy who rode the coattails of the American taxpayers his entire life. Could they not raise the funds from private donors? I guess not it s a shame for all the hardworking taxpayers out there who ponied up without even having a choice in the matter.Over half of the funding for the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate came from taxpayer dollars, half of that from Defense budget.It was supposed to be all private money but alas even in death Teddy Kennedy has found a way to take from the American taxpayer. That the money is going to his own self aggrandizement would have pleased him. That the money came from defense would have pleased him even more.The New York Times writes: Here s an unstated lesson: It pays to have friends running the Appropriations Committee. More than $18 million of the $38 million in public funds for the center was funneled through the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, a powerful panel once run by other Senate powerhouses who have died in recent years:Senators Daniel K. Inouye, Democrat of Hawaii, and Ted Stevens, Republican of Alaska But one would think people would be lining up to throw cash at the project given how great Kennedy was. Couldn t the Kennedy clan pony up the dough? Or maybe just house the memorial in the basement of the Hyannis Port estate? But why have the family or friends of the Kennedys pay for Teddy s monument when one can get the taxpayers to do it?and this from Newsmax: President Obama, Vice President Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry and Sen. Elizabeth Warren will all gather to praise the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate. Much will be said about Kennedy s 46-year record in the U.S. Senate, nothing about various scandals that ranged from Chappaquiddick to his attempts to have the Soviets intervene in the 1984 presidential election against Ronald Reagan. Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr points out that the Insititute was supposed to be paid for exclusively with private donations. But it should come as no surprise that the gorgeous 40,000-square-foot building that will house Kennedy s papers and memorabilia as well as a recreation of his personal office and the Senate chamber was financed with a generous $38 million congressional earmark. The state of Massachusetts chipped in with another $5 million for education infrastructure.Read more: Newsmax

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