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ATHEISTS SUE GOVERNOR OF TEXAS Over Display on Capitol Grounds

I m convinced the Freedom From Religion group of atheists didn t get enough attention when they were kids. They re perpetually offended by just about everything. Here s yet another case of them mocking a nativity scene with a childish display and then suing the Texas governor when he took it down.Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is being sued by an atheist group over his decision to remove its nativity-scene parody from the state Capitol in December.The Freedom From Religion Foundation announced a federal lawsuit against Abbott in the Western District of Texas, Austin division, on Thursday. The organization alleges the governor violated free speech, equal protection and due process rights when he ordered the removal of an exhibit commemorating the birth of the Bill of Rights.The image in question, approved by Texas State Preservation Board, included the Statue of Liberty, the Founding Fathers and the Bill of Rights in a manger. It was placed in the state Capitol Dec. 18, 2015, and remained there for three days before Abbott acted. Mocking the Capitol nativity scene is offensive. I demand the removal of the satirical nativity scene from Capitol, Abbott tweeted Dec. 22, 2015.The governor also penned a letter to the State Preservation Board: This juvenile parody violates the Preservation Board s regulations and should be removed immediately. The biblical scene of the newly born Jesus Christ lying in a manger in Bethlehem lies at the very heart of the Christian faith. Subjecting an image held sacred by millions of Texans to the Foundation s tasteless sarcasm does nothing to promote morals and the general welfare, Abbott said. To the contrary, the Foundation s spiteful message is intentionally designed to belittle and offend, which undermines rather than promotes any public purpose a display promoting the Bill of Rights might otherwise have had. Read more: wnd

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BREAKING WIKILEAKS BOMBSHELL! Murdered DNC Staffer Seth Rich Was DNC LEAKER: “He Was My Whistleblower”

Conspiracy theories have been surrounding the murder of Seth Rich. They reached a new frenzy after the hacking of DNC e-mails led to the resignation of its chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz.Rich was beaten, shot and killed early on the morning of July 8 while he was walking home and talking on the phone to his girlfriend. Police have said they haven t determined if his murder was a botched robbery or something else. The killer or killers appear to have taken nothing from their victim, leaving behind his wallet, watch and phone.Wikileaks just confirmed murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich was the source of the DNC leak.Wikileaks released a series direct messages from US alleged Russian spy Guccifer 2.0 to actress model Robbin Young (according to Young).In the stream of texts the discussion leads to the DNC leaker.His name is Seth ** In November Julian Assange said Russia did not hack into the DNC servers. -h/t GP Here s the proof:Direct Messages from U.S. alleged Russian spy @GUCCIFER_2 to actress-model @robbin_young (according to the latter) https://t.co/uMsB9WgxRQ WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) April 8, 2017Actress Robbin Young claims she had given this information she received from Guccifer 2.0 to the authorities but, no one cared :https://twitter.com/Robbin_Young/status/850743524953702404Actress Robbin Young states that Guccifer 2.0 told her, i m eager to find facts about seth, i m sure it wasn t just a robbery. seth was assassinated. :Guccifer 2.0 said, "i'm eager to find fact about seth, i'm sure it wasn't just a robbery. seth was assassinated." #SethRich Robbin Young (@Robbin_Young) March 29, 2017In June 2016,the hacker Guccifer 2.0 claimed responsibility for breaking into the Democratic National Committee s servers, lifting opposition research the DNC had gathered, including a 200-page document focused on presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.The hacker s moniker is an homage to Guccifer, the nom de guerre of Romanian hacker Marcel Lazar who claimed a previous hack into Hillary Clinton s private email server and is now awaiting prosecution for cybercrimes. RTWhile Wikileaks Julian Assange was being interviewed by John Pilger, he brought up the death of Seth Rich. Watch Assange s strange and somewhat cagey reply.Here is part of the conversation:Julian Assange: Whistleblowers go to significant efforts to get us material and often very significant risks. As a 27 year-old, works for the DNC, was shot in the back, murdered just a few weeks ago for unknown reasons as he was walking down the street in Washington.Reporter: That was just a robbery, I believe. Wasn t it?Julian Assange: No. There s no finding. So I m suggesting that our sources take risks.Watch it again in slow motion below:Watch Assange answer question about Seth Rich s murder again in slow-motion: THE RUSSIA HOAX: Julian Assange acknowledges murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich was Wikileaks source. Why is MSM covering this up? #Trump pic.twitter.com/FS297JooQI ViveLaFrance (@vivelafra) December 11, 2016Seth Rich s parents explain what happened only moments before his death. He was the Voter Expansion Data Director for the DNC. His parents say he was, Making sure everyone who wanted to vote, had the opportunity :Shortly after the killing, Redditors and social media users were pursuing a lead saying that Rich was en route to the FBI that fateful morning, apparently intending to speak to special agents about an ongoing court case possibly involving the Clinton family.More recently, Wikileaks s thousands of DNC emails and voice mails have piqued Reddit s interest, with Redditors combing through years of communications looking for any clue to Rich s murder.The theory is apparently based on Julian Assange s recent ITV appearance, where he scoffed at the idea that Russian hackers could be responsible for the data dump, and said that anyone within the Democrats organization could easily have sent Wikileaks the offending messages.Given that Rich as a DNC staffer presumably would have had some access to its servers, Reddit is absolutely positive Rich paid the ultimate price for exposing Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the DNC s crusade against Bernie Sanders. HeatstreetGo HERE for fascinating timeline of events leading up to the brutal murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich.

1real

German Social Democrats under pressure to form grand coalition

BERLIN (Reuters) - The leader of Germany s Social Democrats came under growing pressure on Thursday to drop his opposition to a new grand coalition with Angela Merkel s conservatives, with senior politicians arguing the party had a duty to promote stability. Merkel is facing the biggest political crisis of her career since efforts to forge a three-way coalition with the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) and Greens collapsed last weekend. That has raised worries across Europe of a prolonged leadership vacuum in the continent s economic powerhouse. The Social Democrats (SPD) have governed in coalition under Merkel since 2013. But leader Martin Schulz said the party must heed the will of voters by going into opposition after achieving its worst result of the postwar period in the Sept. 24 election. Pressure is growing on the party to revisit his decision, either by agreeing to prop up a conservative-led minority government by not voting against it, or by forming a renewed coalition. In either case, the position of Schulz as party leader could become untenable. If changing course and teaming up with the conservatives requires a change of leadership at the SPD, that would be unlikely before a party conference on Dec. 7-9. Schulz held a lengthy meeting with President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a former SPD lawmaker and foreign minister, on Thursday afternoon before heading to party headquarters to consult senior party members. Steinmeier is trying to help facilitate a coalition government and avoid fresh elections. We will talk about if and how one can get a federal government in Germany, a senior SPD member said ahead of the meeting, adding that one option on the table was to support Merkel only indirectly by not blocking a minority government. But Stephan Weil, the SPD premier of the state of Lower Saxony, one of the party s most influential figures after he defied polls by winning re-election this year, implied a full coalition would preferable to a minority government. Minority governments are fragile constructs, he told the RND newspaper consortium. The SPD had to chart a path between a party rank-and-file reluctant to repeat the bruising experience of a grand coalition and its democratic obligations. Everyone understands that the stakes are high, involving the stability of an extremely important member of the European Union, he added. Volker Kauder, leader of the conservative parliamentary group and a key ally Merkel ally, echoed the sentiment, calling for the grand coalition to be reprised. Europe is waiting for a Germany capable of acting so that it can finally respond to the questions raised by French President (Emmanuel) Macron, he said, referring to Macron s call for fiscal reforms to strengthen the euro zone. Germany, the world s fourth largest economy, has long been a bastion of stability in the EU, and officials in Brussels and Paris fear months of political uncertainty could harm plans to reform euro zone governance and EU defense and asylum policies. Merkel, who remains acting chancellor until a new government is agreed, has said she would prefer to work with the SPD, but if that option fails, she would favor new elections over an unstable minority government. Another election would also provide no speedy resolution. Under Germany s constitution, the president could call another election only after Merkel had lost several votes in the Bundestag a process that could take several months. The mass-circulation Bild newspaper reported on Wednesday that 30 members of the SPD s 153-strong parliamentary group this week had questioned Schulz s preference for going into opposition during a meeting of the parliamentary party. Speaking to ZDF television on Thursday, SPD deputy leader Karl Lauterbach said his party might have to rethink its opposition to another grand coalition , but added he was still skeptical about joining one led by Merkel. The SPD supports Macron s proposal to give the euro zone the power to spend money to protect members of the single currency bloc against external shocks. If the SPD changes tack about a grand coalition , however, the leader of Merkel s sister party in the state of Bavaria, the Christian Social Union (CSU), said on Thursday it should not expect the conservatives to grant any significant concessions. We can t be blackmailed, said Horst Seehofer, who is himself fighting to hang on as CSU leader in the face of internal opposition.

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All Governments Lie, The Movie

Posted on October 30, 2016 by DavidSwanson Picture, if you will, video footage of vintage (early 2016) Donald Trump buffoonery with the CEO of CBS Leslie Moonves commenting on major media’s choice to give Trump vastly more air time than other candidates: “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.” That’s the introduction to a powerful critique of the U.S. media. A new film screens in New York and Los Angeles this week called All Governments Lie: Truth, Deception, and the Spirit of I.F. Stone . The website AllGovernmentsLie.com has screening dates , a list of lies , and a list of good journalists who expose lies . The lists on the website are not identical to the content of the film, but there’s a good deal of overlap — enough to give you a sense of what this project is about. I’d have made various changes and additions to the film. In particular, I’m tired of all the focus on Iraq 2003. This film touches on war lies since then, but still gives that one particular set of war lies prominence. Still, this is a film that should be shown in cities, homes, and classrooms across the United States. It includes and is driven by Noam Chomsky’s analysis of how the media system is “rigged” without those doing the rigging believing they’ve done anything at all. It’s a survey of skullduggery by corporate media. It’s an introduction to numerous journalists far superior to the norm. And it’s an introduction to I.F. Stone. It includes footage of a presentation of the annual Izzy Award which goes to journalists acting in Stone’s tradition. One of the lies listed in the film and on the website is that of the Gulf of Tonkin (non-)Incident. Anyone paying attention knows of it now as a war lie. And it was a transparent war lie at the time in a particular sense. That is: had the North Vietnamese really shot back at a U.S. ship off their coast, that would not have been any sort of legal, much less moral, justification for escalating a war. I’d love it if people could grasp that logic and apply it to the Black Sea, the Red Sea, and every other part of the earth today. But the Gulf of Tonkin lies about Vietnamese aggression against the U.S. ships innocently patrolling and firing off the coast of Vietnam were not transparent to people with faith in the U.S. role of Global Policeman. Someone had to make the lies transparent. Someone had to document that in fact the Secretary of So-Called Defense and the President were lying. Sadly, nobody did that in the first 24 hours after the Congressional committee hearings, and that was all it took for Congress to hand the president a war. And it was decades before White House transcripts came out and before the National Security Agency confessed, and additional years before former Secretary Robert McNamara did. Yet, those revelations simply confirmed what people paying attention knew. And they knew it because of I.F. Stone who just weeks after the (non-)incident published a four-page edition of his weekly newsletter exclusively about Tonkin. Stone’s analysis is useful in looking at the incident or lack thereof this past month in the Red Sea off Yemen. And in fact it is to Yemen that Stone immediately turned on page 1 in 1964. The United Nations, including its U.S. ambassador, had recently condemned British attacks on Yemen that Britain defended as retaliatory. President Dwight Eisenhower had also warned the French against retaliatory attacks on Tunisia. And President Lyndon Johnson, even at the time of Tonkin, Stone notes, was warning Greece and Turkey not to engage in retaliatory attacks on each other. Stone, who tended to look even at written laws that nobody else paid any heed to, pointed out that three of them banned these sorts of attacks: the League of Nations Covenant, the Kellogg-Briand Pact, and the U.N. Charter. The latter two are still theoretically in place for the U.S. government. The United States in Vietnam, Stone goes on to show, could not have been innocently attacked but itself admitted to having already sunk a number of Vietnamese boats. And indeed the U.S. ships, Stone reports, were in North Vietnamese waters and were there to assist South Vietnamese ships that were shelling two North Vietnamese islands. And in fact those ships had been supplied to South Vietnam by the U.S. military and the good old American tax payers. Stone did not have access to closed committee hearings, but he hardly needed it. He considered the assertions made in speeches by the only two senators who voted against the war. And then he looked for any rejoinders by the chairmen of the committees. He found their denials to be non-denials and nonsensical. It made no sense that the U.S. ships simply happened to be randomly hanging around in the vicinity of the South Vietnamese ships. Stone didn’t believe it. Stone also filled in the background information. The United States had been supporting guerrilla attacks on North Vietnam for years prior to the non-incident. And Stone raised numerous suspicions, including the question of why the U.S. ships had supposedly made sure they were out in international waters for the (non-)incident to (not) occur, and the question of why in the world Vietnam would take on the United States military (something nobody could explain, though Eugene McCarthy proposed that perhaps they had been bored). Missing from the film and website of All Governments Lie is I.F. Stone’s work on lies about the outbreak of the Korean War. We’ve learned more since he wrote it, but seen little more insightful, relevant, or timely for our understanding of Korea and the world today. This entry was posted in General . Bookmark the permalink .

1real

Ask Holly: What’s everyone’s problem?

Ask Holly: What's everyone's problem? 27-10-16 Dear Holly, Apparently hardly anyone wants to listen to me on the radio, even though I work so hard discussing pointless drivel with myself for hours on end interspersed with soul-destroying tracks by Coldplay and Michael Buble. What’s everyone’s problem? Chris London Dear Chris, My dad’s had a great idea for Channel 4’s new direction with Bake-Off. Instead of all this old lady nonsense about Victoria sponges and gingham and witty lesbians, the new version should be called ‘The Great British Man-Off’ and it’ll be a load of competitive middle aged blokes being bawdy and doing manly stuff like re-sealing the bath and shouting at the radio and getting frustrated with tools. Everyone on the show will be worried about going bald and every episode will end with an embarrassing scuffle in a pub car park. Hope that helps,

1real

PBS HOST ASKS HILLARY:“Do You Believe The President Is Racist?…Her Answer Proves That She Is The REAL Racist [VIDEO]

PBS host Judy Woodroof asked Hillary if she believed President Trump is racist? Hillary pauses for effect and then delivers her very scripted answer to Woodruff: Here s what I believe, I believe that he has given a lot of encouragement and rhetorical support to the Ku Klux Klan, he accepted the support of David Duke. Hillary knowingly pushed the lie that Trump accepted the support of KKK member David Duke. It s the same lie she s been peddling since Trump became her opponent in the presidential race, even though she knows there isn t one shred of evidence or proof to back up her sick claim. Her answer to Woodruff is nothing more than a lame attempt to pin Trump a false allegation on our sitting President while deflecting from the truth about her ACTUAL ties to the KKK. Watch Hillary attempt to paint President Trump as a racist .When President Trump was dropping out of the Reform Party primary in 2000, he clearly condemned David Duke during an interview with Matt Lauer.When pressed by Matt Lauer on why he saw the Reform Party as self-destructing, Trump commented: Well, you ve got David Duke just joined, a bigot, a racist, a problem, I mean, this is not exactly the people you want in your party. Watch Trump s 2000 interview with Lauer here:What Hillary Clinton didn t mention to Judy Woodruff during her interview, was that her presidential campaign received more than $20,000 in donations contributed by members of the Ku Klux Klan. Vocativ reported that a prominent member of the hate group Will Quigg of the California Grand Dragon for the Loyal White Knights said, For the KKK, Clinton is our choice . Mr. Quigg, the leader of the Klan s California chapter, announced last month that he had abandoned supporting Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump in lieu of backing his likely Democratic opponent. The Klansman claims that members have raised more than $20,000 for Mrs. Clinton and have donated it anonymously to her campaign. She is friends with the Klan, Mr. Quigg told Vocativ. A lot of people don t realize that. Hillary never made any secret of her love and admiration for her mentor, the late Klan leader Democrat Senator, Robert Byrd.In a video uploaded to the State Department s official YouTube page on June 28, 2010, Clinton commemorated late Sen. Byrd by saying, Today our country has lost a true American original, my friend and mentor Robert C. Byrd.

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4 EASY TO UNDERSTAND REASONS My Ancestors Are NOT The Same as Illegals Who Come To America Today

How many times have liberals used the argument that everyone s relatives came here illegally! ? The answer is about a million or more times. Liberals can t seem to differentiate between people who came to our nation to either escape persecution or to find a better life that came through Ellis Island or immediately applied for citizenship in America, and those who float across the Rio Grande on an inner-tube after paying a coyote a fee to help them illegally cross our borders.This meme brilliantly explains the difference in 4 short bullet points.:Here s a little visual for anyone who tells you #4 isn t true:It is estimated that 12.5 million illegal aliens are currently living in the United States.Below, are a series of visuals from the Federation for American Immigration Reform or FAIR to help Americans to understand the cost of illegal immigration to taxpaying Americans. This data from September 27, 2017, paints a pretty bleak economic picture for America if we continue to ignore the serious problem of illegal immigration: FAIR At the federal, state, and local levels, taxpayers shell out approximately $134.9 billion to cover the costs incurred by the presence of more than 12.5 million illegal aliens, and about 4.2 million citizen children of illegal aliens. That amounts to a tax burden of approximately $8,075 per illegal alien family member and a total of $115,894,597,664. The total cost of illegal immigration to U.S. taxpayers is both staggering and crippling. In 2013, FAIR estimated the total cost to be approximately $113 billion. So, in under four years, the cost has risen nearly $3 billion. This is a disturbing and unsustainable trend.

1real

[VIDEO] IN ONE OF THE DARKEST CORNERS OF THE WORLD, An Iraqi Archbishop Makes A Beautiful Music Video To Give Christian Refugees Hope

Refugee camps are overflowing with Christians and Yazidis who ve been persecuted and chased from their homes by ISIS. This beautiful video reminds the residents of these refugee camps to keep the faith and not to lose hope in God and their faith community A British electronica band has teamed up with the archbishop of Iraq to release a song sending a message of hope to persecuted Christians, Yazidis, and other minorities in the crosshairs of the Islamic State and raising awareness about their suffering and need for support.Ooberfuse, a duo based in Woolwich, London, recently released the video, titled We Are One. The video was shot in various refugee camps in Erbil and features children of all backgrounds who are living in squalor after the Islamic State forced them to flee their homelands. They are the fortunate who managed to survive the assault.As The Christian Post reports, the video features very strong Christian overtones and reiterates the fact that although many of these refugees have lost their homes and lives they once knew in Iraq, they will never be without the love and hope of God. It also features quotes from a number of officials explaining the suffering of not being able to return home.Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil begins the video by reciting the Lord s Prayer in Aramaic, the language in which Jesus is believed to have first recited it. Archbishop Warda expressed enthusiasm for the project in speaking with the Catholic Herald. Sometimes you take hard measures, unfortunate measures to deal with and treat this cancer, he added, referring to the Islamic State as the cancer. Archbishop Warda has previously used the term for the terrorist group, though noting in remarks in April that sectarian violence based on religion is not new, though the Islamic State has taken it to a new scale of horror. He has called for Christians to try to remain in their native lands in Iraq and preserve the religion there, as he has seen the numbers of his diocese diminish rapidly. We know that life in Iraq is not easy, especially when they live crammed into a room in a house or in a caravan and we have been left with nothing, he stated, but hoped some would reconsider. I think this is the first time in history a leading Middle Eastern religious leader has embraced the forms of popular culture to advance the Christian message of love and hope, said Ooberfuse singer and guitarist Hal St John, thanking the archbishop for joining their efforts.Via: Breitbart News

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South Sudan Slides Closer to War as Gunfire Rumbles in Its Capital - The New York Times

JUBA, South Sudan — South Sudan slid rapidly closer to war on Monday as helicopter gunships pounded targets, two United Nations peacekeepers were killed, foreign governments scrambled to get their citizens out and worries grew about the fate of civilians trapped in crowded displaced persons camps. Gunfire rang out from different quarters, moving across Juba, the capital, like a thunderstorm, on and off, and witnesses said hundreds of people had been killed in the past three days. The fighting completely overshadowed the fifth anniversary this weekend of the country’s independence. In Juba, few celebrated because people were hunkered down indoors. South Sudan, the world’s youngest country and one of its poorest, cracked open into civil war in December 2013 after the nation’s two top politicians, President Salva Kiir and Vice President Riek Machar, bitterly split. Mr. Machar became the leader of a rebel group, and an estimated 50, 000 people have been killed since then. Each side has been blamed for widespread atrocities against civilians. But after a peace agreement, Mr. Machar returned to Juba in April and was sworn into his old position as Mr. Kiir’s vice president, essentially returning the country to the fragile political situation it was in before the war. The latest violence seems to be fueled by the same rivalry between the two men, who are from different ethnic groups and have tens of thousands of heavily armed young men following them. But there are also worries that the top leaders are losing control over their troops. “In the last 2 hrs, we went through heavy bombardments by Pres Kiir helicopters,” Mr. Machar wrote on Twitter on Monday. “This tells that our partner is not interested in peace. ” On Monday, United Nations officials said that the large displaced persons camps in and around Juba that house thousands of people had been shelled, killing at least two civilians and wounding dozens. It was not clear if the mortar or artillery shells that had crashed into the camps were stray shots or were deliberately aimed at civilians seeking refuge. United Nations officials said they were deeply concerned and were trying to secure the camps as best as possible. Mr. Kiir’s spokesman read a statement signed by the president calling for a unilateral beginning at 6 p. m. local time, and he urged Mr. Machar to tell his fighters to stand down as well. “This is a unilateral ” said the spokesman, Ateny Wek Ateny. “The president has declared, and is also urging the leader of the former rebel movement, Dr. Riek, who is still the first vice president of the republic of South Sudan, to also do the same and cease the hostilities. ” More than 10, 000 people may have been displaced by the latest fighting, the United Nations said, adding to the 30, 000 or so people who fled their homes during previous rounds of violence in Juba. On Monday, the maternity wing of a hospital run by the International Medical Corps was hit by shelling, the group said in a statement, adding that it had treated 139 people since July 8 for injuries inside what is supposed to be a protected area. Secretary General Ban called on Monday for an “immediate arms embargo” against South Sudan, saying that its rival leaders had “made a mockery” of the peace deal they signed only months ago. The ball is now in the Security Council’s court. The United States and China, the two countries with the greatest stakes in the country, have been lukewarm to the idea of an arms embargo in the past. A group of African nations on Monday nudged the Security Council to strengthen the mandate of the peacekeeping mission, in part by sending in more troops from the region and by creating what it called an “intervention brigade. ” He also called for the peacekeeping mission to be reinforced. There are 12, 000 soldiers and police officers on the ground now. Mr. Ban said government troops had effectively been blocked from leaving their bases. Contingency plans are being explored to bring in more peacekeepers from the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, United Nations officials said Monday. The displaced persons camps are considered to be in danger. Thousands of people, mostly members of Mr. Machar’s ethnic group, the Nuer, are concentrated in rows of tents, easy targets for artillery. Many fled their homes in the past two years to escape ethnically targeted violence. Human rights groups say the violence between Nuer soldiers and those of the Dinka, Mr. Kiir’s group, has spawned a range of atrocities, including mass rape and the widespread killing of civilians. One senior Western official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said the South Sudanese government was accusing Mr. Machar’s rebel forces of hiding in the displaced persons camps, which could be used as a pretext to storm them. The United States Embassy posted on its Facebook page: “The situation in Juba has significantly deteriorated. There is serious ongoing fighting between government and opposition forces, including near the airport, Unmiss locations, Jebel and elsewhere throughout Juba. ” (Unmiss is the acronym for the United Nations Mission in South Sudan.) The United States government is preparing to evacuate personnel from its embassy in Juba. Last week, when the fighting started, an American government car was sprayed by gunfire. The car was heavily armored, and no American employees were believed to have been hurt. In several past emergencies, United Nations peacekeepers in South Sudan have been outnumbered and did not stop massacres. In February, dozens of civilians were killed when soldiers overran a United Nations camp in Malakal, in the eastern part of the country. The two peacekeepers who were killed in the latest round of violence were believed to be Chinese. One was killed while sitting in an armored personnel carrier that was trying to protect a displaced persons camp. South Sudan’s recent history has been soaked in blood. Aid workers estimate that at least two million people have been killed in the past 30 years as South Sudan struggled against Sudan for independence and then factions in South Sudan turned on one another. In the beginning, Mr. Kiir and Mr. Machar fought together in the war for independence, but later Mr. Machar broke off and joined the Sudanese government against Mr. Kiir and his rebels, who are not Arab. Mr. Machar eventually returned to the rebel fold and was a crucial figure in the South Sudanese government when it achieved independence five years ago. Many analysts said the mistrust between Mr. Kiir and Mr. Machar might run too deep to overcome. Western and African nations have exerted enormous pressure on the two to work together, even with the threat of sanctions and international isolation. The fighting began on Thursday over something relatively small. A group of soldiers loyal to Mr. Kiir stopped a vehicle carrying a group of soldiers loyal to Mr. Machar, a senior United Nations official said. An argument erupted over whether the vehicle could pass through a checkpoint, and guns were drawn. Shooting started, leading to rolling battles across Juba that continued through Monday. By Monday evening, the shooting had subsided, but aid officials said the two sides were using the lull to reposition their forces.

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Florida Voter Registration Deadline Is Extended, a Win for Democrats - The New York Times

A federal judge has extended Florida’s voter registration deadline to Oct. 18, agreeing with voting rights advocates and the state Democratic Party that damage from Hurricane Matthew threatened to deprive some residents of their right to cast a ballot. The decision on Wednesday had major political implications in a swing state where, the party’s lawyers said, Democrats make up a disproportionate share of those who register in the final week. Florida and North Carolina, which also has a tight presidential race, were two of the five states battered last week as Hurricane Matthew moved up the coast, lashing northeastern Florida and causing severe flooding in North Carolina. North Carolina officials said on Tuesday that they would address any problems. “We are working with each county with damage or anticipated damage to ensure they have polling places available for early voting and Election Day,” the executive director of the State Board of Elections, Kim Westbrook Strach, said. But in parts of the state that were underwater, residents had other problems on their mind. “The focus now is on making sure people are safe,” Merwyn Smith, a pastor and a member of the Lenoir County Board of Education, said in Kinston, N. C. “A lot of voters are not going to be focused on voting right now. ” Mr. Smith knows that now is normally the time for a final registration push. But on Wednesday, he was delivering bottled water to a shelter, where 166 people were hunkering down ahead of dangerous flooding expected this week. Across the state, thousands have been rescued or evacuated as swollen inland rivers flood neighborhoods, destroy cars and shut down major roads. The chaos, Mr. Smith said, is likely to hinder early voting, which starts Oct. 20. Florida’s and North Carolina’s responses to the storm have received especially close scrutiny both because of the states’ significance in the presidential race and because of allegations of political bias. A federal appeals court struck down North Carolina’s election law in August, saying it had been crafted to suppress voting by . In Florida, the Republican state government has limited voter registration drives, shortened the period and limited voting by since Gov. Rick Scott took office in 2011. Critics say that all three actions disproportionately affect Democratic voters. Democrats sued Mr. Scott after he refused to extend the state’s Oct. 11 registration deadline, even though much of Florida’s east coast had been evacuated and all state offices had been closed before the hurricane hit. News accounts quoted the governor as saying, “Everybody’s had a lot of time to register,” and brushing off the potential impact on the election. “Look, this is, this is politics,” he said. Both the Democrats and the League of Women Voters, which sued Mr. Scott separately, disputed his analysis. They noted that as many as 181, 000 Florida residents had signed up to vote in the last nine days of registration in 2012. Lawyers for the state Democrats noted that registrants tend to be young or minorities, two heavily Democratic groups, and that Mr. Scott heads a “super PAC,” Rebuilding America Now, that supports the Republican presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump. Mr. Scott had argued that he lacked the authority to extend the deadline, but Judge Mark Walker, of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida, said both federal law and the Constitution justified doing so to protect the right to vote. “No right is more precious,” Judge Walker said. In North Carolina, Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican, said Monday that he had not decided whether to extend the state’s Friday registration deadline. “Let’s see how we get through this week and see what the status of the voting, early registration sites will be,” Mr. McCrory said. “I won’t close that option at this point in time. ” Unlike Florida, however, North Carolina allows voters to register and cast a ballot at the same time during an early voting period that begins next week, giving those who miss the deadline a second chance to sign up. Three other states — Georgia, South Carolina and Virginia — suffered less hurricane damage and little disruption to their election preparations, officials in each state said. Sekethia Baker, a behavior specialist who was talking with Mr. Smith in Kinston, said she expected storm damage to hamper the efforts in which she typically participates. “Just getting people’s focus back on voting,” she said, “it’s going to be hard to get that motivation back. ”

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U.S. conservative group backs Republicans who favor clean energy

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A conservative nonprofit group that lobbies Republicans to support clean energy policy will spend more than $1 million over the next few weeks to back 10 members of Congress running in the Nov. 8 elections, hoping to attract key swing voters such as millennials. Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions (CRES) is backing Republican House and Senate candidates who favor clean energy, even as Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump mocks wind energy and calls climate change a hoax. Embracing a clean energy agenda can help Republicans win in close races by attracting key voters like millennials and women, and help broaden the Republican base, James Dozier, CRES executive director, told Reuters. “The way I look at it is regardless of who is in the Oval Office, we need clean energy champions on the Hill,” said Dozier, who added that Republicans have ceded the issue to Democrats. “This is a ripe opportunity to reframe Republicans’ engagement in energy debate,” said Dozier. “We see this as an issue the party can use to grow the tent with the next generation of voters, with female voters and Hispanics and African Americans.” CRES kicked off its fall spending campaign last week with more than $200,000 in radio ad buys for Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski and North Carolina Senator Richard Burr, who faces a close re-election race against challenger Deborah Ross. The group will spend an additional $900,000 in support of other Republican candidates, including New Hampshire Senator Kelly Ayotte, who is neck-in-neck with Democratic Governor Maggie Hassan in her re-election bid, and Representative Joe Heck, who is running in the hotly contested race for the open Nevada Senate seat against Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto. On the House side, CRES will spend money for ads and voter turnout efforts for representatives from Illinois, Virginia, Florida and New York. CRES is not alone in backing Republicans who can help the party embrace clean energy policy and accept the science behind climate change. Jay Faison, a North Carolina-based businessman, launched the $2 million Clear Path Action Fund to launch digital media campaigns for candidates, including Ayotte, who support clean energy in key swing states. But these Republican efforts are dwarfed by spending from environmental PACs that are spending record amounts to back Democrats. The League of Conservation Voters said it will spend a record $40 million this election cycle. Other groups, including green activist billionaire Tom Steyer’s NextGen and the Natural Resources Defense Council Action fund, have also announced tens of millions of dollars more in spending.

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Homeland Security not targeting Dreamers: Kelly

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Department of Homeland Security will not target immigrants brought to the United States as children for deportation, despite conflicting statements within the Trump administration, its secretary John Kelly said on Sunday. Kelly, asked on Sunday morning talk shows to clarify the department’s position on the status of these illegal immigrants protected under an Obama-era program, said the agency is focused on deporting only dangerous criminals. “My organization has not targeted these so-called Dreamers,” Kelly told CNN, referring to the name given to those granted protections under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program created by Democratic President Barack Obama and extended by Republican President Donald Trump. “We have many, many more important criminals to go after,” he said. Trump has said Dreamers “have nothing to worry about,” but Attorney General Jeff Sessions last week said immigrants who arrived in the United States as children were “subject to being deported.” On Sunday, Sessions walked back his earlier statement. “I believe that everyone that enters the country unlawfully is subject to being deported; however, we’ve got — we don’t have the ability to round up everybody and there’s no plans to do that,” Sessions said on ABC. “But we’re going to focus first, as the president has directed us, on the criminal element.” On Feb. 17, Juan Manuel Montes, 23, who had lived in the United States since he was 9, was deported from the border city of Calexico, California, after being questioned by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer. That was the first documented deportation of a Dreamer. Kelly said in another Sunday interview on CBS that while Dreamers are not being targeted, several of them end up detained by immigration officers as they round up criminals. “People fall into our hands incidentally that we have no choice in most cases but to go ahead and put in the system,” he said.

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Trump’s Campaign CEO LITERALLY Ordered His Minions To Destroy Paul Ryan Months Ago

Steve Bannon, Trump s campaign CEO who was the editor-in-chief at right-wing rag Breitbart, apparently ordered his staff there to destroy Paul Ryan not too long after Ryan took over Boehner s mantle as Speaker of the House. Some of this revelation comes courtesy of Michelle Fields, the Breitbart reporter who was thrown under the bus after she spoke out about Corey Lewandowski grabbing her.At Breitbart Bannon literally directed folks to destroy Ryan Hes prob so happy rn seeing Ryan too scared to unendorse a campaign hes running Michelle Fields (@MichelleFields) October 11, 2016For his part, Bannon seemed to have a habit of calling Ryan the enemy while on editorial conference calls, and even wrote an email that said: Long game is Ryan gone by spring. This was back in December 2015, and now, Bannon s probably thinking they should step up their game after Ryan refused to campaign with Trump. Compared to Trump and Bannon, Ryan is a paragon of human decency. Like any decent human being, he was sickened by the leaked audio tape of Trump saying his celebrity status allowed him to grab women by the pussy. Trump himself went nuts on Ryan on Twitter after Ryan condemned him, calling him weak and ineffective. He also slammed the entire Republican Party for not standing by him in what his hour of need? Do alpha males even have those?A former Breitbart employee also confirmed that Bannon used to tear into Paul Ryan all the time. Bannon, apparently, can be at least as crazy as Alex Jones when it comes to conspiracy theories. He had his own conspiracy theory about Ryan s succession to House Speaker: [Bannon] goes on these amazing rants. He thinks Paul Ryan is part of a conspiracy with George Soros and Paul Singer, in which elitists want to bring one world government. It also includes a belief that Ryan masterminded a failed plot to bring down Trump. It s difficult to get more crazy than this, but this is the man who is Trump s campaign CEO.Of course, people who are close to both Trump and Bannon are framing this latest feud of butthurt as general anger with the establishment, and nothing more. That seems to be an attempt to distance Trump from all the conspiracy nuts, and might be effective if Trump wasn t a conspiracy nut himself.This is probably why Trump wanted Bannon they re two peas in the crazy pod. One of these days, these two idiots may actually figure out that they re the problem, and not everyone else. But we shouldn t hold our breath for that. Bannon also said that the campaign needs to bitch-slap the Republican Party. If a moment of regret happens, it ll happen years in the future when they re on their deathbeds.Photo of Steve Bannon by Kirk Irwin/Getty Images for SiriusXM. Photo of Paul Ryan by Win McNamee/Getty Images. Images merged by Rika Christensen.

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THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS Has Come To Bethlehem

Say it ain t so! The New York town of Bethlehem is being cleansed of all things Christmas and Hanukkah. Any and all signs of Christmas including a town sign that says Merry Christmas are gone. We can only say Bah Humbug! That little town in upstate New York shut down any hopes of happy holidays by voting to not display any Merry Christmas signs in public and even taking down a banner for Hanukkah, too.The holiday hoopla followed apparent anxieties that this town near Albany which shares a name with the birthplace of Jesus Christ himself might appear to be favoring one religion over another.The town for years displayed a Christmas tree and a Menorah in its central Four Corners area, according to the Albany Times-Union. But it drew the line on signs that had any written messages such as, Merry Christmas or Happy Hanukkah. One resident, Elena Marcelle, bought a Merry Christmas sign for the town several years ago. This year, she said learned the town wasn t interested in hanging it up as usual. She asked town board members why. At first they said it was a traffic distraction, Marcelle, 47, told the Daily News. The second reason is that they were afraid of infringing on constitutional rights. But the board had in fact voted to ditch worded displays altogether, meaning a Happy Hanukkah sign disappeared too.This despite a letter sent from the Alliance Defending Freedom, an Arizona-based conservative Christian group, urging Bethlehem to keep its holiday spirit alive. The irony is not lost on us that your town s name is Bethlehem, the letter said, according to the Times-Union.Marcelle said she s amazed the town would mince words over holiday cheer. It was just a holiday greeting, she said about her Christmas sign. I didn t ask to have a nativity scene. It would just recognize that Christmas is a holiday. The town has no law on the books banning any kind of holiday display. But town supervisor John Clarkson told The News the town s attorney warned the board this year that municipalities might get a legal lump of coal over any sign celebrating one holiday in particular. We re a municipality, not a religious entity, Clarkson said. Advocating on behalf of any religion is one of those gray zones you don t want to get into. He said he saw no irony in Bethlehem stepping away from holiday greetings, noting that the town is at least sticking by its Christmas tree and Menorah presentations. I would say this little town of Bethlehem still has a really nice, homey holiday display, he said.Via: NYDN

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DID IRAN RELEASE This Footage Of Captured U.S. Sailor Apologizing To Humiliate America?

And what about the female sailor in the headscarf? What was that all about? Do all the female hostages of Iranian Revolutionary Guard have to wear headscarfs so as not to offend them? This whole capture of the Navy boats and the hostage taking of our U.S. Sailors just wreaks of something that s been in the workings and was not as spontaneous as Obama s spokes liar would have us believe Iranian state-controlled news outlet Tasnim released video Wednesday afternoon that shows a U.S. sailor apologizing for purportedly infringing upon Tehran s sovereignty.Pictures published by #Iran state TV from the moment #US marine were arrested. pic.twitter.com/bcEKaJGPb9 Abas Aslani (@AbasAslani) January 13, 2016Pictures published by #Iran state TV from the moment #US marine were arrested. pic.twitter.com/YQakdKmqi3 Abas Aslani (@AbasAslani) January 13, 2016On Tuesday, Iran seized two U.S. naval boats, arguing they illegally entered Iran s territorial waters. The Pentagon said they encountered mechanical troubles, forcing their boats to go off course.First footage from the moment when #US sailors were captured by #Iran's #IRGC. #Marines pic.twitter.com/7BeJLlGfNn Abas Aslani (@AbasAslani) January 13, 2016Part 2: First footage from the moment when #US sailors were captured by #Iran's #IRGC.#marines pic.twitter.com/vFyto44oGD Abas Aslani (@AbasAslani) January 13, 2016Footage of #US marines having Iranian #food while they were held in #Iran.#marines#navy#Pentagon pic.twitter.com/mtk2J0Yef9 Abas Aslani (@AbasAslani) January 13, 2016 It was a mistake, it was our fault, and we apologize for our mistake, an unidentified sailor told the Iranian interviewer, who then asked him if his GPS system penetrated Iran. I believe so, he responded.#Iran state TV showed a footage in which the commander of #US sailors made an apology.#navy#Pentagon pic.twitter.com/VCdjEZiY54 Abas Aslani (@AbasAslani) January 13, 2016In another segment of the interview, the sailor held by the Iranians is asked, How was the Iranian behavior with you? He responds, The Iranian behavior was fantastic while we were here. We thank you very much for your hospitality and your assistance. Did you have special problem with us, the interviewer asked. We have no problem, sir, the U.S. sailor responded.Video: One of #US sailors says Iranians behavior with them was "fantastic" & they had no problem. #Iran pic.twitter.com/vgVlrkzdvh Abas Aslani (@AbasAslani) January 13, 2016What do you think? Does anyone else believe this was a test run for something more serious?Via: Breitbart News

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Oroville Dam: Jerry Brown Asks Donald Trump for Aid - Breitbart

California Governor Jerry Brown has formally requested federal assistance from President Donald Trump to deal with the evacuation of nearly 200, 000 people from the area below the Oroville Dam, where a spillway is near structural failure. [The Associated Press, via Bay Area news station KRON 4, reports: OROVILLE, Calif. (AP) — Gov. Jerry Brown is asking the Trump administration for federal assistance in responding to a potential failure of a spillway at the Oroville Dam in Northern California. In a letter to President Donald Trump released Monday, Brown asks for help for the three Northern California counties affected. Brown says aid is needed to assist the 188, 000 residents of Butte, Sutter and Yuba counties who were ordered to evacuate Sunday after concerns an emergency spillway could give way, unleashing a gush of water to downstream towns. Though vowing to fight the Trump administration on a variety of issues — Obamacare, immigration, climate change — Brown has been less hostile than the members of the California state legislature and has openly welcomed President Trump’s plans to spend on infrastructure. Brown’s letter reportedly stated: “I have determined this incident is of such severity and magnitude . . . that federal assistance is necessary to save lives and to protect property, public health and safety” According to the East Bay Times, Brown told a press conference on Monday that he had not been aware until news reports emerged earlier this week that the state and federal government had resisted calls to improve the dam spillway in 2005. Critics charge that Brown has not shown sufficient interest in upgrading the state’s dams or expanding water storage. Officials are racing to lower the level of the lake behind the dam by 50 feet before a week of wet weather arrives Wednesday and Thursday.

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Charlotte, Syria, Ted Cruz: Your Friday Evening Briefing - The New York Times

(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the .) Good evening. Here’s the latest. 1. Disturbing footage emerged of the fatal encounter between a black man and police officers in Charlotte, N. C. Recorded on a cellphone by the wife of the man, Keith Scott, the video shows the officers ignoring her as she tells them from a distance that her husband is unarmed, has a traumatic brain injury and just took his medicine. As she pleads with the officers not to shoot, the sound of gunfire can be heard. “He better live,” she says repeatedly, turning the camera to his body on the ground. Then: “Did you all call the police? I mean, did you all call an ambulance?” _____ 2. Stock prices dipped on Wall Street. Some investors dropped Yahoo, driving down its share price a day after the company revealed the 2014 breach of a staggering 500 million user accounts, an episode that may affect Verizon’s deal to acquire the company. Facebook’s stock was down, too, after it acknowledged a measuring error led to inflated figures on video consumption, while Twitter shares shot up — way up — on reports that the company was in talks to be bought. _____ 3. President Obama vetoed a bill that would allow families of Sept. 11 victims to sue the Saudi government for any role in the attacks. But Congress, which passed the bill in both houses with bipartisan support, is likely to override the veto, which would be a first during Mr. Obama’s presidency. Mr. Obama will speak at the opening of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture on Saturday. _____ 4. Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump are preparing for their first debate, each looking to take advantage of the other’s vulnerabilities on Monday night. In our campaign podcast, The Mr. Trump’s ghostwriter for “The Art of the Deal” shares his observations on both candidates’ weak spots. As of Sunday, there will be a new platform for following the race: We the People, a Snapchat Discover channel from one of the founders of Politico. _____ 5. Mr. Trump won the surprise endorsement of a former bitter rival: Ted Cruz. And in another sign of Republican acquiescence, if not unity, House Speaker Paul Ryan, who once made it a point to counter Mr. Trump’s more controversial statements, generally deflects questions about the candidate now. Here’s our voter registration guide. _____ 6. In theaters this weekend: “The Magnificent Seven,” a remake of a remake. Our critic says its main redeeming feature is Denzel Washington, “a great star, which means that he has that ineluctable what’ for selling the goods no matter what their date. ” And our TV experts recommend Season 3 of “Transparent” (Amazon) and, for those who want to relive the distinctive humor of Garry Shandling, “The Larry Sanders Show” (HBO Now). _____ 7. In San Francisco, the new Millennium apartment tower has taken on a pronounced lean, forcing city officials to reassess how buildings are vetted. An exemplar of the city’s construction spree, the tower is the subject of a suit on behalf of the unnerved residents, some of whom paid more than $2 million for a apartment. _____ 8. Violence in Syria suddenly escalated. Government forces and their Russian allies launched aerial assaults on areas of the northern city of Aleppo and threatened a ground invasion. Secretary of State John Kerry’s efforts to revive a at the United Nations appeared to collapse. President Obama has said the situation in Syria “haunts me constantly,” but his calculations of the realities, including the difficulty of trusting deals with Russia, have stopped him from greater intervention. _____ 9. One of our stories today is by a novelist whose defense of fiction as a vehicle for empathy was met with outrage by those who understood her interest in writing about people different from herself to be excusing cultural appropriation. The novelist, Lionel Shriver (“We Need to Talk About Kevin”) said she worried that the stance popular among the young could end up damaging progressive politics. “There are many people who see these frenzies about cultural appropriation, trigger warnings, and safe spaces as overtly crazy,” she writes. “The shrill tyranny of the left helps to push them toward Donald Trump. ” _____ 10. Finally, need a break? You need venture no farther than your armchair to go to the ends of the earth through the eyes of six adventuresome photographers. “It’s the region where Lucy, the famous hominin, was found it was the start of humanity, and it feels like it,” one of them wrote about his visit to the area pictured above, the Danakil Desert in Ethiopia. Have a great weekend. _____ Martin Tsai contributed reporting. _____ Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p. m. Eastern. And don’t miss Your Morning Briefing, posted weekdays at 6 a. m. Eastern, and Your Weekend Briefing, posted at 6 a. m. Sundays. Want to look back? Here’s last night’s briefing. What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes. com.

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Republican debate: Six things to watch

Boulder, Colorado (CNN) The Republican presidential campaign is entering a decidedly more combative phase as candidates prepare to take the debate stage on Wednesday night. The GOP field is seeing a shake-up after remaining static for weeks. Long-time front-runner Donald Trump no longer appears invincible, thanks to the climb of Ben Carson. Jeb Bush has hit hard times, but promises to show a more muscular side. Carly Fiorina failed to turn her strong debate performances into winning poll numbers. And since the last debate in mid-September, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has left the race. Here are six things to watch in the CNBC debate: From his perch at the top of the Republican field, Trump had largely declined to go after Ben Carson, training his fire instead on other more seasoned politicians like Bush, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul. Referring to Carson as a "good" person who he admires personally, Trump has even fueled speculation the retired neurosurgeon could be on his vice presidential short list. But those days of playing nice are over. An abrupt shift in tone came after a series of consecutive polls showed Carson had overtaken Trump in Iowa, relegating the businessman to second place. Then, on Tuesday, Trump even lost his first place spot in a national poll, trailing Carson 26% to 22%, according to Tuesday's CBS/New York Times poll. If the last week offers any indication, Trump is expected to throw multiple punches at Carson on the debate stage. The attacks could get personal. The real estate mogul appeared to suggest over the weekend that Carson's religious affiliation — he's a Seventh-day Adventist — was extreme. But it will take a whole lot more to get Carson firing back. Known for his reserved and calm demeanor, the candidate has repeatedly said he has no interest in becoming an attack dog. "Ben has said he's going to stay who he is and he wouldn't want to get elected being somebody else," said Ryan Rhodes, Carson's Iowa state director. "He does not need to tear someone else down to build himself up." When Bush steps onto the stage Wednesday night, there will be visual confirmation of his recent struggles. Rather than take the podium immediately next to Trump, Bush will be two spots removed from the GOP front-runner for the first time. The former Florida governor's national poll numbers seem permanently stuck in the single digits behind political novices like Trump and Carson. Last week, the campaign announced new cost-cutting measures, followed by a weekend Bush family confab in Houston. "He needs to have a performance that stands out from the crowd. He won't be center stage this time so he need to, in words and actions, figure out how not to fade into the wings," said Katie Packer, deputy campaign manager for Mitt Romney's 2012 campaign. (Packer is neutral in the race but is a founding partner of WWP Strategies, which works for Rubio in Michigan.) Bush's advisers are suggesting Bush may try to do just that on Wednesday, by showing off his more fiery and loose side. The campaign is "tearing up the script" and preparing to simply "let Jeb be Jeb," sources told CNN's Jamie Gangel. There's no question that Carly Fiorina is the star of the Republican debate team. What's less clear is whether she can translate the momentum from her prime-time performances into a lasting boost for her candidacy. The former Hewlett-Packard CEO used a breakout performance in the last CNN GOP debate to propel herself from a little-known, first-time presidential candidate to a top-tier contender. But that surge in the national polls has all but vanished; she fell from 15% in September to 4% in last week's CNN/ORC survey. Her campaign has pushed back on any suggestion that Fiorina may be going from one breakout moment to the next, and instead emphasized that she's focused on winning over voters at a slow and steady pace. "I'm glad people liked her debate performance and liked her message, but one debate does not win the thing," deputy campaign manager Sarah Isgur Flores said. Debt ceiling: To raise or not to raise In a debate that's promising to focus on jobs and the economy, one issue could divide the Republican candidates on the stage Wednesday: the debt limit. Raising the debt ceiling is a Congress-approved maneuver that essentially allows the U.S. government to carry more debt in order to allow the Treasury Department to continue paying its bills. The issue has become highly divisive among Republicans in recent years: Fiscal conservatives argue they would rather let the country default on its financial obligations than increase national spending. This week, congressional leaders and the White House reached a two-year budget deal that would raise it through early 2017. "Raising the debt ceiling is politically explosive on the right. Some candidates pander and say they never will raise it," said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum and economic adviser to John McCain in 2008. "Others will invoke something like the Boehner rule and argue that spending cuts will make it worth it. But the real test is who will say 'yes, we have to raise it'." Of the 10 Republicans participating in the prime-time debate, these four rank at the bottom: Mike Huckabee, Chris Christie, John Kasich and Rand Paul. And they've been there most of the race. According to CNBC's average of recent national surveys, each of those Republicans poll around 3%. With the Iowa caucuses now just three months away, these candidates are under pressure not only to boost their rankings, but also to persuade donors to keep funding their bottom-tier campaigns. Christie's campaign raised just over $4 million in the third quarter while Kasich raised around $4.4 million since launching his campaign. That's not much more than the $3.9 million Trump's campaign raised without actually trying. Meanwhile, Rand Paul raised $2.5 million last quarter, while Mike Huckabee pulled in $1.2 million. Will there be much of a debate? Every candidate faces a shared challenge Wednesday night: persuading viewers not to change the channel. After coming under fire from candidates like Trump and Carson, CNBC agreed to keep Wednesday's prime time debate to just two hours, commercials included. The network also agreed to allow opening and closing statements for each candidate, which means even less time for the White House hopefuls to tackle questions, go after rivals and make a splash. The first two GOP debates were record-setting blockbusters, pulling in an unprecedented 24 million and 23 million viewers each. Not only are those numbers becoming increasingly hard to beat as the novelty of the debates wears off, but the debate also happens to collide with Game 2 of the World Series between the New York Mets and the Kansas City Royals.

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Women won't earn the same as men for another two centuries - report

Thu, 27 Oct 2016 11:40 UTC © Joshua Lott / Reuters It will take close to two centuries for women to earn the same as men, according to the World Economic Forum's latest report. The annual Global Gender Gap Report was released Tuesday and found economic disparity between the sexes is on the rise. When looking at income and employment, we are back to similar levels of inequality seen during the 2008 financial crash. "At the current rate of change, and given the widening economic gender gap since last year, it will not be closed for another 170 years," the report read. The Gender Gap Index uses economics, education, health and political empowerment to rank 144 countries that have enough available data to use. Last year's report estimated it would take 118 years for economic equality to be achieved. Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden were the best countries on the Global Gender Gap Index having closed the gender gap in more than 80 percent of cases, but all still have disparities between the sexes. Rwanda and Ireland came fifth and sixth in the index. The UK came 20th and the US came 45th, falling 17 places from last year. Yemen came last. "There also continues to be a persistent wage gap in paid work," the report says. "Women's average earnings are almost half those of men, with average global earned income for women and men estimated at US$10,778 and $19,873, respectively. Countries that perform well in this dimension of gender parity span all regional and income groups." To examine economic participation and opportunity, the report looks at the ratio of female and male workers, wage equality for similar work and the ratio of women to men in various roles. The greatest gap between the sexes was found in political empowerment. The first Index was conducted in 2006 to track gender disparities and countries' progress over time.

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Obama trip to Cuba not affected by cancellation of tentative Kerry visit: White House

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama’s visit to Cuba later this month will not be affected by the cancellation of tentative plans for Secretary of State John Kerry to visit the island nation for human rights talks beforehand, the White House said on Friday. The top U.S. diplomat told a congressional hearing on Feb. 23 that he might be in Cuba for a dialogue on human rights before the president’s scheduled trip March 21-22. But officials said on Thursday that Kerry’s visit had been canceled amid concerns over Cuba’s human rights record. The White House said on Friday that Kerry’s decision would not affect Obama’s visit, and that Kerry would travel to Cuba with the president.

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Panama's president to visit Trump at White House on June 19

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump will meet with Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela at the White House on June 19, the White House said in a statement on Monday. Trump and Varela will discuss the fight against transnational organized crime, illegal migration and drugs, the statement said. They will also talk about the U.S.-Panama economic partnership and the situation in Venezuela, it said.

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Boiler Room #88 – Behold: Your New Ministry of Truth

Tune in to the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR) for another LIVE broadcast of The Boiler Room starting at 6:00 PM PST | 8:00 PM CST | 9:00 PM EST for this special broadcast. Join us for uncensored, uninterruptible talk radio, custom-made for barfly philosophers, misguided moralists, masochists, street corner evangelists, media-maniacs, savants, political animals and otherwise lovable rascals.Join ACR hosts Hesher and Spore along with Jay Dyer (author of Esoteric Hollywood) and Jamie Hanshaw, host of Happy Hearts Radio for the 88th episode of BOILER ROOM. Water the plants, put the kids to bed and get your favorite snuggy out so you can drop deep into the Boiler Room with the ACR brain-trust.Caller line was open for BOILER ROOM EP #88:Please like and share the program and visit our donate page to get involved!BOILER ROOM IS NOT A POLICTALLY CORRECT ZONE! LISTEN TO THE SHOW IN THE PLAYER BELOW ENJOY! Listen to Boiler Room #87 Behold: The New Ministry of Truth on Spreaker.Reference Links:

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IS PUERTO RICO THE NEXT DETROIT?

This entire situation with Puerto Rico reminds me of the bailouts with the financial industry. It s just like the too big to fail mantra we all heard during the financial crisis. Obama has already sent a task force to assess the situation but to what end? Yes, this might be one of those too big to fail situations that we really can t afford but under Obama it s gonna happen Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla is hoping to defer debt payments while negotiating with creditors, much as Detroit was forced to do. The governor warned that Puerto Rico can t pay its $72 billion public debt as international economists release a critical report on the island s economy, delivering another jolt to the recession-gripped U.S. island as well as a world financial system already worrying over Greece s collapsing finances.Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla is hoping to defer debt payments while negotiating with creditors, spokesman Jesus Manuel Ortiz said Sunday night. Detroit was forced to make a similar move with the help of emergency manager Kevyn Orr, who went on to try and dig Atlantic City out of its own financial hole.By comparison, notes CNN, Detroit shed $7 billion in debt over the course of its attempt to turn the financial ship around. Puerto Rico s state-owned power company PREPA is itself $9 billion in the red.Garcia is expected to air a pre-recorded televised address as legislators continue to debate a $9.8 billion budget that calls for $674 million in cuts and sets aside $1.5 billion to help pay off the debt. The budget has to be approved by Tuesday. Ortiz confirmed comments by Padilla that appeared in a report in The New York Times published late Sunday. There is no other option. I would love to have an easier option. This is not politics, this is math, Garcia is quoted as saying in the Times.Puerto Rico s bonds were popular with U.S. mutual funds because they were tax-free, but hedge funds and distressed-debt buyers began stepping in to buy up debt as the island s economy worsened and its credit rating dropped. Garcia s comments will likely not have much impact on Wall Street, said economist Jose Villamil, a former U.N. consultant and CEO of an economic and planning consulting firm. The markets are clear that Puerto Rico is heading to a direction of a restructuring or default, said the economist, adding that a voluntary restructuring by bondholders might be the best option. The last four administrations have kicked the can down the road, said Villamil. At this point, there is no more can to kick. So we re going to take some very strict measures and some very profound measures. It s going to hurt, but there s no way out. Read more: DAILY MAIL

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Philippines Proposes ‘Gentleman’s Agreement’ with China on South China Sea - Breitbart

On Thursday, Philippine Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano suggested the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) should reach a “gentlemen’s agreement” on South China Sea waterways because there is no legal authority to enforce a binding contract for navigation through the region. [“If it’s legally binding, which court can the parties go to? And the countries that do not comply, will they respect that court?” Cayetano said to reporters, as reported by Reuters. “Let’s start with it being binding, gentlemen’s agreement. We have a community of nations that signed it. ” He was referring to the draft framework for a South China Sea code of conduct between ASEAN and China on Thursday. Cayetano seemed to be throwing in the towel on getting China to sign a more stringent contract. As Reuters delicately puts it, there is “regional skepticism whether Beijing will commit to rules likely to restrain its maritime ambitions. ” Such a “gentleman’s agreement” would control shipping lanes that handle five trillion dollars per year in commerce. The proposal follows remarks by President Rodrigo Duterte that China was installing “some kind of armed garrison” on the disputed South China Sea islands it claims. Reuters notes that some of ASEAN’s representatives believe China is playing along with the draft framework merely to “buy time for Beijing to wrap up construction activities,” at which point Chinese ownership of everything Beijing covets in the region would be a fait accompli, despite the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague ruling against Chinese claims of sovereignty last year. China largely ignored the ruling, which explains Cayetano’s doubt that any controlling legal authority to enforce anything stricter than a gentleman’s agreement could be found. Chinese officials spoke vaguely of encouraging progress made in the talks with ASEAN but would not establish a firm timeline for finalizing a Code of Conduct. For their part, the Association nations took a notably softer stance against Chinese development of disputed islands, abandoning complaints about “land reclamation and militarization” at their April 30 summit meeting that were part of the previous year’s declarations. At the time, Philippine President Duterte bluntly stated that complaining about China’s maritime activities was pointless because no one could pressure China into halting them — a similar, if less tactful, sentiment to the one expressed by Duterte’s foreign secretary at Thursday’s meeting. Deputy Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin, head of the Chinese delegation, said the new draft framework “will be an internal document and nobody should publish it,” because keeping the details confidential was key to “future consultations” with the ASEAN nations. Liu also expressed hope that “our consultations on the code are not subject to any outside interference,” in a rather obvious jab at the United States. A report from the South China Morning Post said: China and ASEAN committed to drafting the code 15 years ago, and while it should, in theory, tame how they behave in the South China Sea, it remains an open question whether Beijing will be willing to slow construction of artificial islands and pursuit of effective control over disputed territory. It’s another question whether Southeast Asian countries will have any leverage to ask Beijing to respect the rules. The SCMP report states that China and the Philippines will continue bilateral talks aimed at “creating conditions for a final settlement over the two side’s claims in the South China Sea. ” Four ASEAN countries, including Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam, and the Philippines, have territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea, along with Taiwan, which is not a member of ASEAN.

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Officials in U.S. and India Condemn Shooting of Sikh Man in Washington State - The New York Times

NEW DELHI — American and Indian officials on Sunday swiftly condemned the shooting of a Sikh man in a suburb of Seattle, which followed by less than two weeks a similar episode in Kansas and amid a crackdown on immigration. The man, 39, was in the driveway of his home in Kent, Wash. working on his car on Friday night when a white man, wearing a mask over the lower part of his face, confronted him and then shot him in the arm, The Seattle Times reported. The police have asked the F. B. I. and other law enforcement agencies for help finding the gunman, who the victim said told him to “go back to your own country. ” The victim was identified as Deep Rai, a United States citizen of Indian origin. India’s minister of external affairs, Sushma Swaraj, said she had spoken to the victim’s father, who said his son was “out of danger and recovering in a private hospital. ” The attack bore a troubling resemblance to the shooting on Feb. 22 of Srinivas Kuchibhotla and Alok Madasani, two immigrants from India who were shot by another patron in a Kansas bar. The suspect in that case, Adam W. Purinton, had confronted the two Indians over their visa status and had been escorted out of the bar, before returning and opening fire. Mr. Kuchibhotla died from his injuries. The episode was news in India, which sends hundreds of thousands of legal immigrants to the United States each year, among them students and highly skilled workers. Since the Kansas shooting, many Indians have expressed concerns that racially motivated violence will rise in the coming years, as President Trump leads an effort to curtail legal immigration and deport illegal immigrants. The White House has denied that the violence is in any way connected with Mr. Trump’s policies. Immigration was a central focus of talks last week in Washington, where India’s foreign secretary, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, met with senior American foreign policy officials. Washington’s top envoy in India, MaryKay Loss Carlson, said she was “saddened by the shooting” in Washington State. “As @POTUS said, we condemn ‘hate and evil in all its forms,’” Ms. Carlson said in a Twitter post. The Sikh Coalition, a Sikh rights group based in New York, has urged the authorities in Washington State to investigate the shooting as a hate crime, and called on top officials in Washington to forcefully condemn such attacks. “Tone matters in our political discourse, because this is a matter of life or death for millions of Americans who are worried about losing loved ones to hate,” Rajdeep Singh, a Sikh Coalition leader, said in a statement to the Hindustan Times.

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Exclusive Excerpt -- Adrienne Ross: ’Push Your Way to Purpose: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You’re Meant to Be’

Breitbart News head copy editor Adrienne Ross published two books on April 17, Push Your Way to Purpose: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You’re Meant to Be and #AuntAlma Unleashed: Old, Bold, and Out of Control. Below is an excerpt from Push Your Way to Purpose. Purpose consumes me. It always has. Who are you? Why are you? What will you? I began contemplating those questions when I was a young girl sitting in my bedroom and staring at pictures of music and television icons taped to my wall. But it started long before that. I entered the world with a mandate on my life. It was spoken. It was so. But I didn’t know. I always had a feeling that something larger was calling me, though, which made little sense, considering that I lived in rather ordinary surroundings. The projects of the Bronx don’t exactly conjure up images of greatness. Later, after I moved to Long Island, a bright future may have seemed more likely to the onlooker — like I was getting closer to the possibility of greatness, but even as I daydreamed, there was a nagging longing for more. But how would I make it happen? Isn’t that the question everyone asks? If you think not, think again. By 11, children have already begun wondering what their purpose is. By 40, adults have begun wondering if they missed theirs. We’re all consumed with purpose. Your neighbors are. Your are. You are. We may not recognize it, but it’s there — in the words we speak, the decisions we make, even the friends we keep. Everything points back to purpose and our longing for it. What are the odds that we will fulfill our purpose, though? The answer has everything to do with identity, being able to recognize who we truly are. Unfortunately, many never come to this revelation. As a result, they live beneath themselves. Even those seemingly on top of the world struggle with identity. I am writing this book because I have a message to share, one that will help you understand that there’s more waiting — for you. No matter how low you’ve fallen or how high you’ve climbed, you’re marked for more. This isn’t one of those name it, claim it, blab it, grab it, sprinkle a little dust, and you can have it books meant to pump you up with hot air. Those books do pump you up, right before dropping you — on your head. This book doesn’t tell you that reaching the place you were meant to be is easy. In fact, it tells you the opposite. Some of it is difficult, but all of it is doable. My experiences provide keys to unlock the doors to your destiny and introduce you to principles. My book is called Push Your Way to Purpose for a reason. Let’s just say the title also has a purpose. “Push” is a verb. Verbs are action words. You have to become a verb to grasp what the book’s subtitle promises to teach you: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You’re Meant to Be. Nobody wants to push anymore. We want everything to be easy. But easy doesn’t bring us to destiny. I don’t believe it was supposed to be as hard as we have made it, though. God created us with basic instructions: BE. But “but” got in the way. We “but” our way out of “be,” making excuses for being everything other than our best, and we made messes along the way. Some messes look like successes, while other messes can’t hide. Some people are so far down they can’t even imagine up. But most of the people we encounter are just your ordinary, people. They’re not at rock bottom, and they’re not soaring on the clouds. They’re average, working, normal people. They’re parents, teachers, students, friends. They’re community members you see in the supermarket. They run for elected office. They change diapers. They’re you. They’re me. So we’re in this together. We each have a purpose, and we can discover it, then fulfill it. It will require effort, a willingness never to settle for less than who we are meant to be. It may also require swallowing our egos if we think we have it all together and embracing our potential if we think we have nothing together. Wherever we sit on that spectrum, let us get up, raise our expectations, believe for more, and push our way to purpose. It’s time. “Name her Adrienne because she’s going to be a schoolteacher. ” I’ve shared this story more times than I can count, and for good reason: by the time I’m done telling the story, it always garners the desired response. What is that story, and what is the response? That’s the purpose of this chapter. It’s a perfect place to start because it sets the stage for the focus of this book. Everyone wants to be successful. Everyone wants to believe that she was, in fact, born to be successful, that the adage is true for her life: “The sky is the limit. ” Some would bet the farm — or the — on it. It sounds good, doesn’t it? But it’s not true, or at least it’s not necessarily true. Like most things, it must be made to be true. You have to grab it and make it true in your life. The sky very well may be the limit, but so may the floor. It all depends on the level of your reach, the things you’ve chosen to embrace, the relationships you have — and have not — fostered. All these and more figure into your limit. You may be one of those whose life seems to be without limits, or you may be one who seemingly cannot catch a break. It could go either way because while there are circumstances that are beyond our control and sometimes just happens, very often, the thing that happens to us is us. One thing influencing our level of success is what we hear. When I say “hear,” I mean “listen to. ” Many words bump into my ear in the course of a day, but I don’t feed off of them all. There’s a huge difference between what I hear well enough to repeat and what I listen to and choose to eat — to digest. I decide. And it makes all the difference in the world. Adrienne Ross is an author, editor, columnist, speaker, and former teacher and coach. She owns Adrienne Ross Communications and speaks at schools, churches, political events, and national and international service organization conferences. Ross’s first book is #AuntAlma: Raisin’ a Little Hell Heaven on Earth.

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From Michael Lewis, a Portrait of the Men Who Shaped ‘Moneyball’ - The New York Times

More than a decade ago, Michael Lewis was following a group of young baseball players through the minor leagues. He was working on a sequel to his 2003 best seller “Moneyball,” which chronicled how the Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane revolutionized the sport by using statistics to evaluate players. “I thought I was going to show where the revolution went,” he said. Mr. Lewis tracked the players for two years, but the sequel never went anywhere. By then, “Moneyball” had become huge — it has now sold more than 1. 7 million copies — and the subject felt overexposed. So instead of tracking where the revolution went, Mr. Lewis decided to explore how it started. The inquiry led him to the work of two Israeli psychologists, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, whose discoveries challenged beliefs about human nature and the way the mind works. Mr. Lewis chronicles their unusual partnership in his new book, “The Undoing Project,” a story about two unconventional thinkers who saw the world differently from everyone around them. Their peculiar area of research — how humans make decisions, often irrationally — has had profound implications for an array of fields, like professional sports, the military, medicine, politics, finance and public health. It helped explain why a simple algorithm is often better than the most experienced doctors at diagnosing stomach cancer, why so many financial experts failed to foresee the implosion of the housing market, and why professional basketball teams make costly errors when picking players — in short, why people’s instincts are often so wildly wrong. In 2002, Mr. Kahneman won the Nobel in economic science, a field he had no formal training in, for demonstrating how people make decisions when faced with risks and uncertainty. (When asked if their work had any application to artificial intelligence, Mr. Tversky, who died in 1996, countered that they were more interested in exploring “natural stupidity. ”) When he began digging into their research, Mr. Lewis found an even more compelling story about a fertile intellectual partnership that ended too soon, when Mr. Kahneman and Mr. Tversky had a over who was receiving more credit for their discoveries. “It’s a love story,” Mr. Lewis said during an interview in Manhattan this fall. “It’s this bromance of such great intensity, with such fertility, and the children are ideas, the children live on. ” “The Undoing Project,” which will be released on Tuesday, seems like a departure for Mr. Lewis, whose works have largely been narratives that reveal something unexpected about the way markets work. Often, they feature eccentrics and visionaries who see things that others are blind to — like Mr. Beane of the A’s, or Michael Burry, the misanthropic hedge fund manager in “The Big Short,” who made a fortune by betting against the housing market. “The Undoing Project” centers on psychology, a field Mr. Lewis, a financial journalist who once worked as a Wall Street bond salesman, knew next to nothing about. “I had cold feet about this, for very good reasons,” he said. On closer inspection, though, it becomes obvious that Mr. Kahneman’s and Mr. Tversky’s research shaped many of the subjects that Mr. Lewis has explored, to an almost unsettling degree. “Danny and Amos’s work has something to say about why baseball players get misvalued, or why people can’t see the value of Michael Oher in ‘The Blind Side,’ or why people can’t see what securities really are,” he said. In a roundabout way, their work influenced Mr. Lewis’s career. Their research demonstrating how people behave in fundamentally irrational ways when making decisions, relying on their gut rather than available data, gave rise to the field of behavioral economics. That discipline attracted Paul DePodesta, a Harvard student, who later went into sports management and helped upend professional baseball when he went to work for Mr. Beane. “Without their basic work, Michael Lewis doesn’t get to write ‘Moneyball,’” Starling Lawrence, Mr. Lewis’s editor at W. W. Norton, said of Mr. Kahneman and Mr. Tversky. It wasn’t until Mr. Lewis read a 2003 review of “Moneyball” in The New Republic, which mentioned the connection between Mr. Kahneman’s and Mr. Tversky’s research and the data revolution in baseball, that he realized the extent to which their work had shaped the book. He became fascinated with their research and their unique partnership. Four years later, he finally worked up the nerve to call Mr. Kahneman and request a meeting. It is hard to imagine Mr. Lewis, 56, feeling skittish around anyone. A New Orleans native, he comes across as someone who is at ease in any situation, whether he is shadowing professional athletes and coaches, derivatives traders or bigwigs at the International Monetary Fund. After studying art history at Princeton and getting a master’s degree from the London School of Economics, he worked at Salomon Brothers selling bonds. He left to write “Liar’s Poker,” his 1989 memoir about his experience on Wall Street, which he sold to Mr. Lawrence at W. W. Norton. They have worked together ever since, on more than a dozen books. Unlike many nonfiction writers, Mr. Lewis declines to take advances, which he calls “corrupting,” even though he could easily earn seven figures. Instead, he splits the profits from the books, as well as the advertising and production costs, with Norton. The setup spurs him to work harder and to make more money if the books are successful, he says. “You should have the risk and you should enjoy the reward,” he said. “It’s not healthy for an author not to have the risk. ” Mr. Lewis’s books have sold more than nine million copies, and three have been adapted into successful feature films. Norton is printing nearly 500, 000 hardcover copies of “The Undoing Project. ” Other authors speak about him with admiration bordering on reverence. “His willingness to jump in and take on these topics that are incredibly difficult to represent on the page has always left me ” the New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell said in an interview. “There’s not a single book he’s written that I thought I could have pulled off myself. ” “The Undoing Project” — which tackles abstract concepts like utility theory, prospect theory and heuristics — may be Mr. Lewis’s most arcane and ambitious undertaking to date. “I don’t know how you write a book about a couple of psychologists,” Mr. Lawrence said. “Let’s just say, it’s not promising in another writer’s hands. ” When Mr. Lewis first met Mr. Kahneman in 2007, over coffee at Mr. Kahneman’s house in Berkeley, Calif. where Mr. Lewis also lives, he had no intention of writing a book about him. Instead, he found himself offering writing advice to Mr. Kahneman, who was struggling with his own book, which laid out his theories about human cognition and decision making. “He would say, ‘It’s going to ruin my reputation. I don’t know why I agreed to do this,’” Mr. Lewis said. “At some point I said, ‘If you’re not going to do it, I’m going to write something. ’” Mr. Kahneman’s literary agent vetoed that idea. In 2011, Mr. Kahneman reluctantly published his book, “Thinking, Fast and Slow. ” It sold about 1. 5 million copies. Despite the book’s success, Mr. Lewis felt the story was incomplete. Mr. Kahneman had largely left out a huge piece of the narrative — his own biography and his complicated relationship with Mr. Tversky. Mr. Lewis continued to lobby Mr. Kahneman to let him write about their work. Mr. Kahneman was ambivalent, arguing that the book would read like a textbook. “I said, ‘You don’t understand what a good character you are, and the fact that you don’t understand it is part of what makes you a good character,’” Mr. Lewis said. It took a few years, but Mr. Kahneman finally acquiesced. “He’s a pessimist, so he thought it would come out terribly,” said Richard H. Thaler, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago and a longtime friend of both Mr. Kahneman and Mr. Tversky. “Danny needed to be convinced and charmed, and Michael was up to the task. ” Over the next eight years, as he completed other books, Mr. Lewis spent countless hours with Mr. Kahneman, hiking in the hills surrounding Berkeley, traveling to Israel with him twice, and meeting at his apartment in Manhattan. He also dug through Mr. Tversky’s archives and correspondence, with the help of his widow, Barbara Tversky. People close to both men, including Mr. Thaler and Ms. Tversky, say Mr. Lewis captured the intensity of their relationship and their individual quirks. Colleagues described how the pair would finish each other’s sentences and could often be heard cackling from behind an office door as they wrote dense academic papers. Mr. Tversky was the bold one who delighted in undermining dogma within psychology. Mr. Kahneman was cautious, sensitive and deeply pessimistic. A few of the more colorful details in the book stray from reality, said Ms. Tversky, who praised Mr. Lewis for getting the “broad strokes right. ” For example, Ms. Tversky disputed a delightful anecdote about how her husband was so immune to social convention that he would strip down to his underwear and run outside when he felt like getting exercise. Actually, he would on occasion run on the treadmill in his underwear, but never outside, she said. Mr. Kahneman, now 82, declined to be interviewed for this article, but offered a statement through his publisher. “Naturally, there are points on which I would quibble, but this is Michael’s book, not mine,” he wrote. “Some things in the book surprised me, some hurt, but I am glad it was written, and grateful to Michael for writing it. In the course of many conversations and countless email exchanges I came to understand the defining chapter of my life better than I had understood it before. ” Mr. Lewis said he expected Mr. Kahneman to have a complex reaction to it. “It would be out of character for Danny just to like it, because he doesn’t like much,” he said. “It would not be out of character for Danny to be kind and come to terms with it in a condescending way, like, that’s the best he could do, and I admire him for trying as hard as he could. ”

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LOL! Lifetime Politician Who Got 2% Support From Voters In GOP Primaries Tells CBS: “I don’t know what ‘America First’ Means” [VIDEO]

Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican was unable to differentiate himself from other GOP Presidential candidates and in August 2015, national polls said that 13 percent of Republican or leans-Republican voters said they d never vote for him. Zero percent said they would vote for him.Even someone else polled at 1 percent (cue the joke about how hard it would be to find someone else who isn t already in the race). The highest Graham polled nationally was at 2 percent, according to Real Clear Politics.Yet this morning, on CBS s Face the Nation, while discussing President Donald Trump s inaugural address calling for his policy to be informed by putting America first, Sen. Lindsey Graham, (R-SC) said, I don t know what America first means. Graham said, To the president, if America first is a throwback to the 20 sand 30 s isolationism when it was first used as a phrase, the world would deteriorate even quicker, if it is a new way of Ronald Reagan s peace through strength I would like to work with him. I don t know what America first means. Breitbart

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Pence kicks off Japan talks, both sides seek 'near term' results

TOKYO (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday put Japan on notice that Washington wants results “in the near future” from talks it hopes will open markets to U.S. goods, adding that the dialogue could lead to negotiations on a two-way trade deal. U.S. President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe arranged the economic dialogue between their deputies at a Washington summit in February, soon after Trump took office. “Today we are beginning a process of economic dialogue, the end of which may result in bilateral trade negotiations in the future,” Pence told a news conference with Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso, his counterpart at Tuesday’s talks. “At some point in the future, there may be a decision made between our nations to take what we have learned in this dialogue and commence formal negotiations for a free trade agreement,” he said. “But I leave that for the future.” The comments dash the hopes of Japanese policymakers, who have said they want to avoid use of the economic dialogue as a forum to discuss a bilateral FTA that may put them under U.S. pressure to open up highly-protected areas like agriculture. They also echo those of U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who told reporters that Washington was eager to increase trade ties with Tokyo through a two-way pact. Trump campaigned for office on an “America First” platform, saying he would boost U.S. manufacturing jobs and shrink the country’s trade deficit with countries like Japan. Trump also abandoned the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) backed by predecessor Barack Obama and Abe, and vowed to revisit regional trade deals to focus on two-way agreements. Pence said the TPP was a “thing of the past” and Washington would not wait forever for results from the talks. “When President Trump agreed to this dialogue, he envisioned this as a mechanism for enhancing bilateral commercial relations between the United States and Japan, and achieving results in the near future. And I share that vision and impatience,” Pence told Aso at the start of the talks. Aso in turn said U.S.-Japan trade friction, which soured ties in the 1980s and 1990s, was in the distant past and the allies were now entering an era of cooperation. “In the past, U.S.-Japan economic relations have started from friction, but we’re entering a new area where we start from cooperation,” he told the news conference. “Instead of one side telling the other what to do, I want to start debate on a relationship that is mutual and strategic.” In a statement after the talks, the two sides said they had agreed the dialogue should produce “concrete results in the near term.” They agreed to hold a second round of talks before the end of the year. Ross, seen as more hardline on trade, was also visiting Tokyo and met Japan’s trade minister Hiroshige Seko, a sign a bilateral trade deal was among Washington’s top priorities. “It’s a little bit early to say just what forms things will take, but we are certainly eager to increase our trade relationships with Japan, and to do so in the form of an agreement,” Ross said when asked about a possible free trade pact. Pence arrived in Tokyo from South Korea, where he visited the heavily fortified border separating the North and South. He described the U.S.-Japan alliance as the “cornerstone” of regional security. Pence’s 10-day tour of Asia aims at emphasising that U.S. President Donald Trump wants to boost U.S. trade in the region, despite scrapping the TPP. Japan had a $69-billion trade surplus with the United States last year, the U.S. Treasury Department has said, expressing concern over what it called the “persistence” of the imbalance. Japanese officials counter that Tokyo accounts for a much smaller chunk of America’s deficit than in the past, while China’s imbalance is much bigger. Trump has complained Japan keeps its currency artificially low, although a Treasury Department report last week did not label Japan a currency manipulator. However, currencies did not figure in Tuesday’s talks, a Japanese government official said.

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HOW WOULD YOU DEFEND YOUR FAMILY FROM VIOLENT RIOTERS? Think It Can’t Happen To You…Think Again!

Run, yes run, to the nearest gun store and buy a gun to protect your family. This may sound extreme but we are in extreme times because of a very divisive president who s condoned domestic terrorism from a group hell bent on destruction. You can choose to be a sitting duck or not A multi-block neighborhood in north Milwaukee erupted into rioting, looting, and arson after minority residents affiliated with Black Lives Matter used the death of an armed violent criminal to justify a crime spree. The rioting, looting, and arson followed the officer-involved shooting death of 23-year-old gang-affiliated felon named Sylville K Smith. Smith turned towards a black police officer with a stolen gun in his hand and was fatally shot.The criminals who rioted in Milwaukee last won t get another chance to to wage war against civil society without a fight.Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has activated the National Guard to help police should further rioting erupt in a predominantly black Milwaukee neighbourhood where police killed an armed suspect.The Sherman Park neighbourhood, which has a reputation for poverty and crime, appeared calm hours after businesses were burned, cars set ablaze and gunshots fired overnight by demonstrators angered by the police killing.Seventeen people were arrested in the disturbances, Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn said.Four police officers were treated for injuries and released from hospitals.Chief Walker said the Guard would be in a position to aid local law enforcement upon request. Unfortunately, the response comes almost 24 hours too late.One of the terrifying realities of an interconnected digital age is that radicals can easily and quickly organize flash riots. They can descend on an area with little or no warning in large numbers, commit significant felony acts in a short amount of time, and then disappear before law enforcement can mount a significant response.This new reality leaves citizens in a position where virtually any urban or suburban neighborhood community can find itself turned into a flashpoint for a riot within hours, before local authorities have the opportunity to recognize an escalating threat, much less mobilize, equip, and deploy their forces in effective numbers.Now more than ever, you may find yourself and your neighbors forced to band together and defend your homes, businesses, and lives, just as Korean shopkeepers famously did in the 1992 Los Angeles riots, and residents, storekeepers, and Oathkeepers did in Ferguson in 2014.A Ferguson store owner prepared to defend his store during on of the recent riots in Ferguson, Missouri.It probably won t come as a surprise to anyone that the firearms best suited for keeping these violent mobs at bay are the very firearms that anti-gun Democrats are so fervently attempting to ban.AR-15An AR-15 is among the most effective possible firearms against murderous, arson-minded rioters in suburban and urban situations.Equipped with a low variable-power scope to help discern threats, a bright tactical light to clearly identify threats, and 30-round magazines, a law-abiding citizen is well-equipped to take on mobs primarily armed with handguns, impact weapons, and molotov cocktails.The same general rules of engagement apply during riot as they would at any other time. You may not use deadly force upon another human being unless they pose an imminent deadly force threat to you or a third-party.That noted, the willingness of these rioters to use deadly force is unquestioned. They have fired shots at police and citizens, and they have shown that they are willing to torch buildings with little or no thought to the lives inside those structures.This creates a plausible scenario where a citizen sees rioters about to put lives at risk up to several block away, justifying a much-longer-than-normal third-party self defense shot of dozens to hundreds of yards.If you do not yet own a quality AR-15 (or similar rifle) with good low-powered scopes or a red dot optic, a decent weapon-mounted light, other required accouterments and the training to use these carbines for the defense of your family and community, you may want to consider if you re making a mistake.Increasingly, it may be the responsibility of armed citizens to save their communities from violent mobs when law enforcement cannot mobilize fast enough to prevent attacks that are nothing more or less than domestic terrorism.Be prepared.Via: Bearing Arms

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BILDERBERG: More Secret Meetings with Trump Advisors, US Senators

Mark Anderson The Truth HoundThe danger-ridden, tyrannical goal of creating an all-consuming corporate-ruled world superstate dubbed One World Ltd. -incrementally advanced since Bilderberg first met in Holland in 1954 under the auspices of Jesuit-trained European consolidator Joseph Retinger and his agent, Prince Bernhard of The Netherlands explains why Bilderberg goes to such lengths to keep the details of its inner-workings so secret, while functioning as an off-the-grid world networking and planning forum for private governance benefitting the banking and general corporate classes. A core tactic is to parallel but eventually supersede the nation state itself, thereby canceling effective, genuine nationhood altogether.Bilderberg s gatherings, for the record, consist of about 140 mainly North American and European corporate moguls (including select big media), government ministers, treasury officials, parliament members, high-technology leaders, certain royalty (including Bernhard s daughter, Netherlands Queen Beatrix) and central bankers who annually skulk into the world s top hotels, in order to cross-pollinate to pursue One World Ltd. and related financial and political dealings.McMASTER, TWO U.S. SENATORS ATTENDINGIt s highly notable that President Donald Trump s National Security Advisor, H.R. McMaster, is listed as an attendee for this year s Bilderberg meeting June 1-4 in Chantilly, Va., at Westfields Marriot. Other U.S. officials attending who are currently serving in public office are Senators Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.). While Graham jetted to last year s Bilderberg meeting in Dresden, Germany, Cotton evidently is attending his first-ever Bilderberg meeting.SEE ALSO: BILDERBERG: What s The Big Deal?The 65th Bilderberg gathering this year has 131 participants from 21 countries having confirmed their attendance. The entire attendee and official topic lists (but not necessarily complete) can be found at this link [note on this list the large amount of serving Trump Administration officials, and this year s Bilderberg features more active duty US officials than any other previous meeting].McMaster, Graham and Cotton all share a neo-conservative ideology of aggressively patrolling the world, in conjunction with the UK and the EU, to push Western democracy and monopoly capitalism, while fostering hostility toward Iran, Russia and Syria, for the benefit of Zionism, among other things. This fits the Bilderberg credo of using one might say leasing U.S. military power and other influence to control the natural resources and economic machinery of as many nations as possible, while co-opting or overthrowing those nations that stand firm with their own sovereignty.The Virginia gathering marks Bilderberg s first North American meeting in five years. Last year in Germany, according to the group s officially shallow press release, they discussed (in their own words): Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity, Chemical Weapons Threats, Current Economic Issues, European Strategy, Globalisation, Greece, Iran, Middle East, NATO, Russia, Terrorism, United Kingdom, USA and U.S. Elections.The group s press releases, a marvel of revealing simplicity, typically present bluntly-worded topics, such as Russia, Iran United Kingdom, European Strategy and so on. Such topics are clearly indicative of Bilderberg s objectives and concerns for maintaining Western hegemony over Russia and its allies, Iran and Syria, which could include war or the risk of war with Iran and does include targeting Syria under the guise of fighting ISIS Continue this story at The Truth HoundNOTE: The May 24 North American premiere of Bilderberg, the Movie, produced by researcher and author Daniel Estulin and covered exclusively by The TRUTH HOUND among national mainstream and alternative news outlets, stressed one point that cannot be overstressed: The Bilderberg Group above all is in pursuit of One World Ltd. On that note, the movie s promotional flyer asked: What do people who have $1,000,000,000,000,000 talk about in private? While the Estulin movie itself, of course, could not be filmed, videographer Ron Avery shot footage of Estulin s question-and-answer session immediately afterwards. WATCH: READ MORE BILDERBERG NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Bilderberg FilesSUPPORT OUR WORK BY SUBSCRIBING & BECOMING A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV

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East London road blocked due to 'significant' police incident

LONDON (Reuters) - A major road in east London was partially closed due to a significant police incident on Tuesday, the British capital s transport operator said. Transport for London said on Twitter that East India Dock Road was partially blocked both ways due to a significant police incident . London police had no immediate comment.

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TRAYVON MARTIN’S MOM Goes On BLAME WHITEY Tour With Hillary, While His Dad Has BRUTAL Message That Could DESTROY Black Lives Matter

Trayvon s dad sounds more logical and Presidential than Obama when it comes to discussing the truth about black on black crime. Maybe he wasn t so far off the mark when Obama said Trayvon could be his son?While Trayvon Martin s mother is traipsing around the country as part of Hillary Clinton s pander tour and trying to convince everyone that her sweet little angel was gunned down by a racist system, Trayvon s father actually had something intelligent to say on the issue of race. In defiance of Black Lives Matter, Tracy Martin said that the movement is meaningless as long as blacks continue to kill each other.Tracy Martin was speaking before the 30th Annual Charles W. Kegley Memorial Institute of Ethics at California State Bakersfield on Tuesday when he uttered the words that will drive BLM into a frenzy. We gonna keep killing one another. I tell people all the time that we are committing genocide, said Martin.And then here s the thing that if a white guy said it would be considered the most racist statement ever: We re on the brink of extinction at the way these shootings and killings are going on. We keep the funeral homes and the penal system in business. When are we going to wake up? I m a realist. We can t sit up and scream that black lives matter at any other ethnicity group if Black lives don t matter to Black people, he said.This is what I find interesting here: Black Lives Matter is a movement that was created because of Trayvon Martin s death and it is a fact that the black activists get super-pissed off when anyone suggests that black-on-black violence is more of a pressing issue than hyped up and fictionalized racism. But this is the father of the person who spawned the movement saying that blacks killing blacks is the real problem. Something s gotta give.This could cause the movement to collapse on itself, creating a racism supernova that neither race-hustling nor manufactured outrage can escape.Unfortunately not everything that Tracy Martin said was as spot-on as his black-on-black crime observation. He said the way he wanted Trayvon to be remembered was, not as the iconic image of the hoodie, but as the African-American boy who galvanized the country. To galvanize generally means uniting people to action behind a common cause. That is the complete opposite of what Trayvon Martin s death did to this country. Besides birthing the BLM movement, the Trayvon Martin shooting and subsequent trial divided this nation along racial lines at ten times the rate of Barack Obama s efforts.Though he wouldn t use the name of the man who defended his life against a violent attack by his son, Tracy Martin characterized George Zimmerman as guilty and the man who pulled the trigger and killed an innocent. And then there s this: Trust me when I say that white America can t survive without Black America, said Martin.Never trust someone who says trust me they are always lying.I know that when other black celebrities have spoken on the issue of black-on-black violence, they have been shouted down by the black activists and labeled Uncle Toms. It will be interesting to see how the black outrage machine deals with Tracy Martin, father of the father of Black Lives Matter, saying that black lives have to first matter to black people before they will mater to anyone else. Via: Downtrend

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Companies have up to a year for new U.S. tax bill reporting: SEC

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. financial regulators said on Friday that because the new tax bill could make timely financial reporting difficult, public companies can make reasonable estimates when uncertain of the impact of the new tax law in financial reports, and will have up to a year to report final numbers. The Securities and Exchange Commission bulletin comes after the U.S. Chamber of Commerce warned on Thursday that some U.S. listed companies may struggle to file their annual financial reports on time because the Republican-led overhaul of the country’s tax system may prompt a raft of additional disclosures. In a statement on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TJCA) issued on Friday, SEC Chairman Jay Clayton and Commissioners Kara Stein and Michael Piwowar said guidance was similar to that given in the past when tax law changes affected financial reporting. The $1.5 trillion tax bill, signed into law on Friday by U.S. President Donald Trump, will significantly affect many companies’ year-end financial statements because listing rules oblige them to flag any potential material risks or changes to their operations and financial outlook to shareholders. The bill significantly lowers the income tax rate for U.S. companies - to 21 percent from 35 percent - allows them to repatriate cash from overseas, and modifies numerous deductions, among other changes. Public companies have been given a “measurement period” to study the changes created by a new law. During the measurement period, the SEC expects companies to complete their accounting and that “in no circumstances should the measurement period extend beyond one year from the enactment date,” of the TJCA. Companies will also need to make disclosures during the measurement period, including any updates to provisional amounts given earlier, or newly discovered reporting implications from tax bill. For companies with fiscal years ending Dec. 31, getting the necessary analysis done in time could be tough, the Chamber said. The tax bill It is the largest such overhaul since the 1980. In addition to slashing the corporate rate, it temporarily reduces the tax burden for most individuals.

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Bill Maher Gets His Swagger On Over Liberal California Crushing ‘Failed State’ Kansas (VIDEO)

Bill Maher finished Friday s episode of Real Time by absolutely destroying the always-failed experiment that is Republican economics. It wasn t that hard, really. All he did was compare Kansas, a state controlled by far right lunatics, to California, a state that purged the Republican politicians that were strangling it:California raised taxes on the wealthy. A lot. And our economy is booming. We just passed France and India to become, all by ourselves, the world s 6th largest economy.How did California get its act together? Simple, they put Democrats in charge of EVERYTHING: Democrats, from governor on down, control every office and voting body in this state. So we can really study what happens when liberal policies are tried unimpeded. And the only thing I have to say to Republicans about that is: scoreboard, bitches. Meanwhile, deep red states like Kansas and Louisiana are doing great! If you re a billionaire:Whereas states like Kansas and Louisiana that went back to the ol trickle down theory of cut taxes on the rich and they ll always do the right are a financial catastrophe.Here s the deliciously mean segment of Real Time:[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf3Au_zpzMM]Featured image via screencap.

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U.S. Republican Ryan says wants 'Dreamer' action, timing uncertain: Reuters interview

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said on Wednesday he wants Congress to pass legislation to protect illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children but offered no timetable, with existing safeguards due to expire in March. President Donald Trump last month rescinded a program created under his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama that protected the young adult illegal immigrants known as “Dreamers” from deportation and provided work permits. Asked in a Reuters interview whether he thought Congress could tackle legislation this year to help the “Dreamers,” Ryan said the timing was unclear. “I don’t know when we’re going to do it. We’re having lots of discussions on how to do it, and the timing is something that’s just open to debate.” “I want to do it,” Ryan said. “The goal is: we want to fix this and we’re working on it, and we want to make sure that we do it in such a way that we don’t have the same problem down the road - that means border security and interior enforcement.” The illegal immigrants protected under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program are primarily Hispanic young adults. Winning passage of legislation to protect the Dreamers may not be easy, as Congress has struggled for years to approve immigration-related legislation. Trump has taken a hard-line stance against illegal immigrants. Under Trump’s action, the protections for the Dreamers disappear in the first week of March. He urged lawmakers to come up with an alternative before the protections expire. Trump took Republican congressional leaders by surprise last month when he met with top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer and top House of Representatives Democrat Nancy Pelosi about a potential deal on DACA. Schumer and Pelosi came away from the meeting saying they had the outlines of an agreement with Trump, but his administration subsequently made demands that angered Democrats including for funding of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Democrats have said they see a budget vote in early December as a chance to try to force Republicans to accept legislation to help the Dreamers. In December, Congress will need to pass legislation to continue funding the federal government through the rest of the fiscal year that ends next Sept. 30. Republicans, who control both houses of Congress, will need Democratic votes to approve the spending bill. Senate rules require a super-majority of 60 votes in the 100-seat chamber to pass spending bills, and Republicans have a 52-48 majority. In the House, Republican hard-liners often oppose spending legislation.

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Fox News Humiliates Mitt Romney For Flip-Flopping On Donald Trump (VIDEO)

Mitt Romney looked like a defeated man too embarrassed to admit that the rise of Donald Trump is partly his fault.During an appearance on Fox News Sunday, the former Republican presidential nominee was forced to confront the reality that accepting Donald Trump s endorsement in 2012 legitimized the current Republican front-runner among conservative voters.Fox host Chris Wallace mentioned that Romney had a very different view of him four years ago when he endorsed you, and proceeded to remind Romney of that endorsement by playing video of him accepting it and touting Trump as a successful businessman in the process.Romney responded by saying that just because someone endorsed him doesn t mean he thinks they can be president. Sixty-one million people voted for me,, Romney said. I don t think all 61 million ought to be president of the United States. But Wallace hit Romney like a ton of bricks by pointing out that Romney is flip-flopping, a charge that hurt Romney repeatedly during the 2012 Election.As Romney sat and listened in defeated silence, Wallace told him that most of the business failures Romney listed during his anti-Trump speech actually occurred prior to 2012 when Romney praised Trump s business experience and knowledge of how the economy works. But you were talking at the time about his extraordinary ability to create jobs, his understanding of the economy. It s not like Donald Trump everything you believe he did wrong has happened in the last four years. A lot of those business failures you talk about happened before 2012. Before 2012, he was making the birther argument that President Obama needed to show his birth certificate because he wasn t born in the United States. I guess part of the question is, by legitimizing him back then, were you part of the reason he is where he is now? Rather than answer for the flip-flopping, Romney attacked Trump and his policies, saying that they aren t good for America or the Republicans Party.Here s the video via YouTube.Sorry, Mitt. It s a little too late to come out against Trump. Like, four years too late.Featured image via screen capture

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The Financial Benefits of Buying What You Love - The New York Times

Eleven years ago, I needed a new bike. At the time, I rode a lot. I was in a big group of relatively competitive riders, and we’d often put hundreds of miles on our bikes each week. I agonized over what bike to buy, but I kept coming back to one made by a company called Moots, a Colorado company that builds titanium road and mountain bikes by hand. The father of a good friend of mine had a Moots bike when I was growing up, and it made me salivate. The problem was, they were really expensive. Like, “far more money than I ever considered spending on a bike” expensive. Maybe $5, 000 or so back then. But the more I looked into it, the more I was convinced I had to have this bike. After putting myself through the painful process of shopping around, comparing prices and looking at models that I didn’t really want, I pulled the trigger. Following weeks of buyer’s remorse that more closely resembled terror, I came to realize something that is going to sound crazy. Buying this incredibly expensive bike was one of the best financial decisions I’ve ever made. I understand that writing $5, 000 and the words “bike” and “smart financial decision” all in the same sentence sounds absurd, but it’s not. This was a fantastic, rational, smart financial decision. And I know that goes against everything you’ve heard from every personal finance adviser out there. They’re always telling you how to save money, how to reduce expenses, how to buy cheaper. Right? Cheaper, cheaper, cheaper. What I’m saying is, that’s a shortsighted message that we need to change. Here are the reasons. 1. If you love it, you will keep it if you keep it, you will use it. I bought a bike I love. You may not like it. That’s fine. If you don’t like it, don’t buy it. But I love it. And since I love it, I’ve kept it for 11 years. And since I’ve kept it for 11 years, I use it all the time. 2. It replaces five other bikes. The guys I ride with own plastic bikes (carbon fiber). And they may feel the same way about their bikes as I do about mine, but most of them don’t. Most of them think, “Oh, I’ll just go buy a bike. ” A couple years later, they buy the newest bike, and a couple years after that, they buy the newest bike again. Each time they sell the old one and buy the new one, they lose money. That can be costly. I have changed almost nothing on my road bike in 11 years, and I like it more than when I bought it. 3. It will last. Let’s say you follow the standard advice and buy the cheaper bike. We all know what happens with the cheaper bike. It breaks! It wears out, you replace it. And not only does good gear last, but when you buy cheap stuff, you get bored with it. I do not get bored with this bike, and that is why it is saving me money. 4. It’s beautiful. That may sound silly, but it’s important. If you’re planning on having something for a long time, you’d better like looking at it. Any time I even consider looking at a new road bike, all I have to do is wash mine and see the beautiful welds, and I fall back in love again. When I’m done and can no longer ride my bike, it will hang above the mantle over my fireplace. That’s how much I love it. It’s a piece of art to me. 5. The cognitive benefit. Buying things is agonizing. The cognitive expense of switching, replacing and constantly thinking about whether you need a new bike or not has a cost associated with it, too. I don’t think about it. I don’t have to think about it. I’ve got the bike I love. Period. So, I hereby give you permission to consider buying the things you really love — things that may be two, three or perhaps even four times more expensive than a similar product. I am asking you to consider the possibility that buying stuff you love, regardless of price, may be the best decision you can make. Consider that if you love it and you’ll use it, you’ll save not only money but retain the cognitive and emotional energy you would have used to replace the thing once a year. You’ve heard of “buy nice, or buy twice,” right? Well this is a derivative of that idea. But don’t just buy nice, buy what you love. If you don’t, you’ll end up hating, and replacing, until you do.

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NATIONAL SECURITY FOR SALE: UNIVISION Chair Gives Hillary $7 Million To Keep Borders Open

Trump has the Left scrambling to figure out how they re going to stop the flow of illegal immigrants future Democrat voters into America. The possibility that he will defeat Hillary in a landslide election is becoming more and more real every day The chairman of the huge media company Univision has coughed up $7 million to support Hillary Clinton, according to a report on the biggest donors to her presidential campaign.Haim Saban and his wife, described as liberal mega donors, are the Democratic front-runner s top donors, according to the campaign database OpenSecrets.org and its reporter Will Tucker.Saban is notable inside the Donald Trump campaign for canceling coverage of Trump s Miss USA pageant on the Spanish-language network after the Republican proposed a wall between the countries.Tucker revealed the information on Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson, which will air Sunday on Sinclair stations and online.By comparison, Trump s top donor gave $150,000, said the report.From the show s transcript, provided in advance to Secrets:Attkisson: Would people be surprised to know what s really going on behind some of these campaigns? Tucker: I think they would. And I think the data that we work with every day reflects kind of what people fear about the political system. It reflects that very few people have an outside influence over the federal political system in the United States. Tucker also found that Wall Street is Clinton s top donor.Below is the information and fuller transcript provided by Attkisson s show:Sharyl Attkisson: Who are Hillary Clinton s biggest industries and individuals giving to her or her Super PACs? Will Tucker, Open Secrets: If you look at her campaign, what you ll see is very traditional Democratic sources of campaign funds: Education as an industry and lawyers and law firms, to be specific. But if you factor in her Super PACs that are supporting her, securities and investment, what we consider to be Wall Street jumps up the list. It is her number one donor industry. Haim Sabin is one of the biggest supporters of Hillary Clinton s Priorities U.S.A. Action Super PAC.Sharyl: Who s Haim Saban? Tucker: Haim Saban is the Chairman of a big media group. He is a liberal mega donor, and has been for several years. He s a very plugged in donor with the Clinton coalition. Saban and his wife have supported Hillary Clinton to the tune of $7 million dollars. Their giant media investment firm owns Univision. That s the Spanish language TV network that cancelled plans to air Trump s Miss U.S.A. pageant after he said he d build a wall on Mexico s border and crack down on illegal immigration. Sharyl: Would people be surprised to know what s really going on behind some of these campaigns? Tucker: I think they would. And I think the data that we work with every day reflects kind of what people fear about the political system. For entire story: Washington Examiner

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Spared by Gunman in Charleston, Churchgoer Describes Night of Terror - The New York Times

CHARLESTON, S. C. — Polly Sheppard, a retired nurse and longtime stalwart of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, dived under a table as the gunfire began and did the only thing she could think to do: She prayed aloud. She could see the bullet casings skittering across the floor of the fellowship hall and the young man’s boots approaching. Dylann S. Roof told her to “shut up,” then asked menacingly if he had shot her yet. “I said ‘no,’” Ms. Sheppard testified on Wednesday, as the final witness in the guilt phase of Mr. Roof’s federal trial on 33 counts, including hate crimes resulting in death. “And he said, ‘I’m not going to. I’m going to leave you to tell the story. ’” She did, in a panicked call to a 911 operator that night, and again on Wednesday, when she described the events to a courtroom crowded with family members of the nine parishioners Mr. Roof is accused of killing in a massacre on June 17, 2015. After Ms. Sheppard finished testifying, the prosecution rested, and Mr. Roof’s defense lawyers followed suit after declining to call any witnesses. With their eyes on the sentencing phase of the death penalty trial, the lawyers have tried to make suggestions of Mr. Roof’s mental incapacity, but have been allowed little leeway by Judge Richard M. Gergel. Before the defense rested, Judge Gergel, of Federal District Court, summoned Mr. Roof to the bench, placed him under oath out of the jury’s presence and asked if he wanted to testify in his own defense. Mr. Roof, 22, with pale white skin and a distinctive haircut, said he did not. Judge Gergel has scheduled closing arguments for Thursday, and jurors are then expected to begin deliberations. If Mr. Roof is convicted — a virtual certainty, as he confessed in a recorded F. B. I. interview and left a trail of incontrovertible evidence — the jury will return in January to hear more evidence and decide whether to sentence him to death or to life in prison. Mr. Roof, who offered to plead guilty in exchange for a life term, plans to represent himself during that phase. He also faces capital murder charges in state court in a trial scheduled to begin on Jan. 17. Over six days, federal prosecutors presented the jury with an array of technical evidence that established the timeline of Mr. Roof’s plot, but they bookended their case with Ms. Sheppard’s testimony and that of her friend and fellow survivor, Felicia Sanders, who appeared as the opening witness. Guided gently through questioning by an assistant United States attorney, Julius N. Richardson, Ms. Sheppard humanized the nine victims. There was the Rev. Daniel Lee Simmons Sr. known as “Dapper Dan,” who always wore a fedora and usually led the Bible study. She spoke of Ethel Lee Lance, who cleaned the church with “a woman’s touch” and loved the song “One Day at a Time. ” Tywanza Sanders had a “big smile,” and his Susie Jackson, was “a very sweet lady. ” The Rev. DePayne “could sing like an angel. ” Cynthia Hurd, a librarian, had a soft spot for Zora Neale Hurston. And the Rev. Sharonda the tall, graceful track coach, could preach like nobody’s business. Ms. Sheppard said she attended the Bible study that night only because her friend, Myra Thompson, was leading it. She sat near the back because she planned to sneak out early, but Ms. Thompson kept an eye on her. At some point, Ms. Sheppard testified, nodding toward Mr. Roof, “the young man at the table over there joined us. ” She said the church’s pastor, the Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney, asked Mr. Roof if he was there for the study session, handed him a Bible and a pamphlet about the night’s lesson, and offered him a chair. Usually, Ms. Sheppard said, the group would end with a prayer adapted from Genesis: “The Lord watch between me and thee when we are absent from another. ” But as they rose for the benediction, the gunman began firing, she said. Mr. Pinckney was the first to be shot. Ms. Sheppard said she first thought the explosions had come from the church’s aging wiring but then heard Ms. Sanders scream, “He’s shooting!” She reached for Ms. Lance’s cellphone and, after initially pressing the wrong buttons, managed to dial 911. “He shot the pastor,” she told the dispatcher during a recorded call that was played in court on Wednesday. “He shot all the men in the church. ” Soon after, she told the dispatcher, “There’s so many people dead, I think. Oh, my God. ” When the gunman finally left the building, Ms. Sheppard checked the pulse of Mr. Pinckney and another victim. She found none. Mr. Roof, who confessed that he had planned to kill himself if confronted by the police at the church, fled in his car into the sweltering South Carolina night. He was captured the next day in North Carolina. The evidence that prosecutors presented against him included GPS data showing he had visited the church’s neighborhood six times in the six months before the attack and telephone records showing he had called the church four months before. They also have used Mr. Roof’s writings, photographs and possessions to depict him as a racial extremist. Jurors heard, for instance, that he had downloaded a history of the Ku Klux Klan in August 2014, and that investigators found in his bedroom a pillowcase cut into a triangular shape, perhaps to represent a Klan hood. Prosecutors presented photographs Mr. Roof had taken of the Confederate battle flag when it flew on the grounds of the State House, before its removal in July 2015 in response to the shootings. They had a witness read aloud a white supremacist manifesto that Mr. Roof had posted online. They also showed chilling footage of Mr. Roof’s preparations for his assault on the church, including surveillance video of his purchase of a Glock . 45 caliber handgun and ammunition. Mr. Roof also recorded himself, wearing a black muscle shirt and reflective sunglasses, practicing with his pistol, expressionlessly firing shot after shot. But on the final day of testimony, prosecutors turned away from Mr. Roof’s planning and back to its consequences. A forensic pathologist, Dr. S. Erin Presnell, described the findings of autopsies that showed the nine parishioners had been struck at least 60 times. Then Ms. Sheppard, a bright pink scarf draped around her neck, mounted the witness stand. She plucked a tissue or two from a nearby box, and told her story for about 40 minutes. There was no from Mr. Roof’s lawyer, David I. Bruck. “Ms. Sheppard, I’m so sorry,” he told her softly. “I have no questions. ”

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Ferguson Protest Leader Darren Seals Found Dead in Vehicle - The New York Times

The body of an activist from St. Louis who led protests about the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. in 2014 was found with a gunshot wound in the charred remains of a vehicle on Tuesday morning, according to the police and news accounts. The activist, Darren Seals, 29, was found inside the vehicle on Diamond Drive in Riverview in St. Louis County around 1:50 a. m. the St. Louis County Police Department said in a statement. The vehicle had been on fire and he was found after the flames were extinguished. The police said Mr. Seals had lived at an address on Millburn Drive in St. Louis, about 12 miles from where his body was found. The case is being investigated as a homicide by the department’s Bureau of Crimes Against Persons. The motive for the killing was unknown. The police identified Mr. Seals as Daren Seals, although other records listed the spelling of his first name as Darren, The St. Louis reported. On his Twitter account, Mr. Seals described himself as a businessman, revolutionary, activist and “Unapologetically BLACK, Afrikan in AmeriKKKa, Fighter, Leader. ” He helped lead protests after Mr. Brown, an unarmed black teenager, was shot and killed on Aug. 9, 2014, by Darren Wilson, a white police officer, in Ferguson, a suburb of St. Louis. The shooting prompted protests that roiled the area for weeks. On Nov. 24, 2014, the St. Louis County prosecutor announced that a grand jury had decided not to indict Mr. Wilson. That announcement set off another wave of protests. In an interview with MTV. com, Mr. Seals described the night the grand jury announcement was made. He said he was with Mr. Brown’s mother and some friends outside the Ferguson Police Department. He said the decision not to indict the officer was “the ultimate slap in the face. ” “And for Mike Brown’s mother to be right there in my arms crying — she literally cried in my arms — it was like I felt her soul crying,” he said. “It’s a different type of crying. I’ve seen people crying, but she was really hurt. And it hurt me. It hurt all of us. ” Mr. Seals led protests with the group Hands Up United, which was organizing a campaign called Polls Ova Police, which sought to use this year’s elections to challenge police policies. “The broken systems and policies that police enforce must be challenged,” the project said on its website. “We will not vote in favor of any candidate partnering with those who are not fighting for Black life. Polls Ova Police is the war cry of this generation. ” On Twitter, supporters paid tribute to Mr. Seals on Tuesday:

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BREAKING: FORD ANNOUNCES $700 Million U.S. Investment…Jobs, Jobs, Jobs! [VIDEO]

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SYRIAN IMMIGRANT Who Said “9-11 Changed The World For Good”…Calls Syria Her “Homeland” Is Homeland Security Advisor

Feeling safer? One of the sitting members on the Homeland Security Advisory Council s (HSAC) Subcommittee on Countering Violent Extremism is a 25-year-old immigrant of Syrian heritage who said that the 9/11 attacks changed the world for good and has consistently disparaged America, free speech and white people on social media.Laila Alawa was one of just 15 people tapped to serve on the newly-formed HSAC Subcommittee on Countering Violent Extremism in 2015 the same year she became an American citizen. Just last week, the subcommittee submitted a report to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, recommending that the DHS avoid using Muslim terminology like the words sharia and jihad when discussing terrorism.Alawa says she immigrated into the U.S. when she was ten years old. Her family had already left Syria by the time she was born. But I will always be Syrian. I will always be from Syria. I will always be of Syria, she wrote in November 2015, calling the country her homeland. In 2014, Alawa commemorated the September 11 attacks by tweeting that 9/11 changed the world for good, and there s no other way to say it. Exactly a year later, she claimed that, after September 11, Being American meant you were white. In April 2013, she responded to a tweet from activist Pamela Geller who called the Boston Marathon bombings jihad by tweeting: go fuck yourself. On September 21 the day after Secretary of State John Kerry announced that the U.S. would accept 85,000 Syrian refugees in 2016 and 100,000 more in 2017 Alawa mocked the Salty white tears all over my newsfeed. In the Countering Violent Extremism report published last week, Alawa and her fellow subcommittee members recommended that the Department of Homeland Security adapt to the changing nature of violent extremism itself by devoting more attention to anarchists, sovereign citizens, white-supremacists, and others. The report also recommended that, in order to combat violent extremism, the DHS Focus on gender diversity of youth through careful attention to the range of push and pull factors that attract individuals of differing gender. As originally reported by The Daily Caller, the subcommittee Alawa serves on instructed the DHS to begin using American English instead of religious, legal and cultural terms like jihad, sharia, takfir or umma when discussing terrorism in order to avoid offending Muslims.Two months before Secretary Johnson created the Subcommittee on Combatting Violent Extremism, Alawa tweeted: THE US HAS NEVER BEEN A UTOPIA UNLESS YOU WERE A STRAIGHT WHITE MALE THAT OWNED LAND. straight up period go home shut up. Via: Daily Caller

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The Internet HILARIOUSLY Mocks Trump With #TinyTrump Memes, Trump Hissy Fit In 3..2..1.. (IMAGES)

Donald Trump has been acting like nothing more than a child ever since he began campaigning for the presidency.And he has gotten much worse since taking over the White House.Trump constantly whines about the media and brags about himself in an effort to make it sound like he knows what is doing and that anyone who criticizes him is wrong.Since Trump acts like child, the Internet decided to treat him like one by creating the #TinyTrump meme.Now Trump s body size will match his hand size as each photo shows a much smaller Trump sitting or standing next to a full size President Obama or Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.The memes are hilarious and are the perfect way to piss off Trump and his supporters.Reddit users are photoshopping Trump to be about 2 feet tall, and it s hilarious #Trump #TinyTrump https://t.co/r8eUkaCqps pic.twitter.com/7rnXCvGFbk Effeswein (@fswein) February 17, 2017So @realDonaldTrump wants #tinyTrump off the Internet ..ooopsssss pic.twitter.com/Hxao6OSkC8 Zola25 (@295415c) February 18, 2017Can we please RT this? #tinyTrump #impeachtrump pic.twitter.com/MEOsnFJnsf Tom Corswell (@Tom_Corswell) February 18, 2017tiny trump #tinyTrump pic.twitter.com/8A0YmCud65 ROSIE (@Rosie) February 18, 2017Making the Internet great again, #TinyTrump ??? pic.twitter.com/ld57y8r4zE Jason Oickle (@JasonOickle) February 18, 2017My favourite #tinytrump so far pic.twitter.com/LN8ovmkaaD hoverscout (@hoverscout) February 18, 2017I think #tinyTrump is my favorite thing so far this year. pic.twitter.com/Fd9wQSlsXB MJ Brady (@BuffaloMJ) February 17, 2017another #tinytrump i found: pic.twitter.com/GHLKGUdDVW Judge Mental (@DJNoRequest) February 17, 2017Oh, this one got me good for some reason. #tinytrump pic.twitter.com/EUYTo7Tmlp Ignatius, Really. (@phlubup) February 18, 2017#TinyTrump is the real Enemy of the American People. #Trump pic.twitter.com/f7jRGyX4vn Will Brown (@Will_The_Tiger) February 18, 2017#TinyTrump is what twitter has needed pic.twitter.com/VeVqQOt0Sx The New Left ? (@RememberObama) February 18, 2017Donald Trump is sure to be mighty pissed off when he sees these photos. He is obsessed with the size of his hands and he is incredibly thin-skinned and sensitive about it. So seeing himself this small will definitely bruise his fragile ego.Featured image via Twitter

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Melania Trump's speech has an echo of Michelle Obama words

CLEVELAND (Reuters) - Melania Trump’s speech at the Republican National Convention has ignited controversy because it contained a section strikingly similar to words delivered at the Democratic convention in 2008 by the woman she hopes to succeed as U.S. first lady, Michelle Obama. An official with the campaign of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump suggested the similarity in the section to Michelle Obama’s speech may have been the result of an error by her team of speech writers. Donald Trump made no mention of the issue in a Twitter post early on Tuesday, saying simply: “It was truly an honor to introduce my wife, Melania Trump last night. Her speech and demeanor were absolutely incredible. Very proud!” Trump has never held elective office and his White House campaign has been marked by frequent controversy over unorthodox policies and freewheeling remarks that have alarmed many in the Republican establishment. It is a tradition of the party conventions for spouses to offer an enthusiastic personal endorsement of candidates. On Tuesday night, the gathering in Cleveland will formally anoint Donald Trump the Republican presidential candidate for the Nov. 8 election. It was a small section of Melania Trump’s roughly 15-minute speech, a highlight of the opening day of the convention, that was similar to a part of Michelle Obama’s speech in 2008 in support of Barack Obama, who was then campaigning for president. “My parents impressed on me the values that you work hard for what you want in life; that your word is your bond and you do what you say and keep your promise; that you treat people with respect,” said Melania Trump, a Slovenian-born jewelry designer and former model. “They taught me to show the values and morals in my daily life. That is the lesson that I continue to pass along to our son,” she said. “And we need to pass those lessons on to the many generations to follow, because we want our children in this nation to know that the only limit to your achievements is the strength of your dreams and your willingness to work for them.” In 2008, Michelle Obama said, “And Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values: that you work hard for what you want in life; that your word is your bond and you do what you say you’re going to do; that you treat people with dignity and respect.” “...And Barack Obama and I set out to build lives guided by these values, and pass them on to the next generations,” she added. “Because we want our children, and all children in this nation, to know that the only limit to the height of your achievement is the reach of your dreams and your willingness to work for them.” Before Monday’s speech, Melania Trump told NBC in remarks that were aired on several networks: “I wrote it... with as little help as possible.” A spokesman for the Trump campaign called the speech a success, but suggested her writers might have mistakenly injected some borrowed language. “In writing her beautiful speech, Melania’s team of writers took notes on her life’s inspirations, and in some instances included fragments that reflected her own thinking,” Jason Miller, Trump’s senior communications adviser, said in a statement. Paul Manafort, chairman of the Trump campaign, played down the similarities in the Trump and Obama speeches. “There aren’t that many similarities. There are a couple of phrases,” Manafort told CBS News on Tuesday. “It’s basically three places in the speech and it’s fragments of words. She spoke in front of 35 million people yesterday. She knew what she was doing. And she never cribbed from another speech without acknowledging that she was quoting somebody else.” “There was nothing that she did in that speech that she thought was anybody’s words but herself,” Manafort said. Asked if she wrote it herself, Manafort said it was a “collaboration” and he didn’t know how much exactly she had written. “But the words of her speech reflect her feelings for her husband, her country and her family.” “Frankly this was her vision that she wanted to communicate about her husband.” New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, asked if as a former prosecutor he could make a case for plagiarism from Melania Trump’s speech, replied: “No, not when 93 percent of the speech is completely different from Michelle Obama’s speech, and they express common thoughts.“ “I think after tonight we won’t be talking about this, we’ll move on to whatever ... comes up tonight,” Christie, a former rival to Trump for the Republican presidential nomination who now supports him, told NBC’s Today show on Tuesday. (This story corrects to show Melania interview was with NBC, paragraph 13)

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MURDERERS AND RAPISTS FOR HILLARY: VA Governor, Close Clinton Friend Gives 206,000 Felons Voting Rights, Releases Them From Jail Before Election

The good news for Hillary is that she should be able to connect with these hardened criminals on a personal level. The only thing that stands behind Hillary and an orange jumpsuit is her husband s connections and the corrupt Democrat machine that can t get enough of the Clinton Crime Syndicate.In a move called unprecedented by the Richmond-Times Dispatch, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe signed a sweeping order that grants 206,000 convicted felons voting rights just months before the presidential election.McAuliffe s order extends to non-violent and violent felons, including convicted murderers and rapists, an expert told the New York Times.If some cannot abide by society s standards, those standards are barriers that society must break down, McAuliffe affirmed in announcing the order. If we are going to build a stronger and more equal Virginia, we must break down barriers to participation in civic life for people who return to society seeking a second chance. We must welcome them back and offer the opportunity to build a better life by taking an active role in our democracy. I believe it is time to cast off Virginia s troubling history of injustice and embrace an honest, clean process for restoring the rights of these men and women, the governor said in a statement.McAuliffe couched his move in terms of social justice and civil rights, having compared felon disenfranchisement to a poll tax. The order will likely boost black voter turnout in a critical swing state that could deliver Hillary Clinton one estimate provided to the New York Times claimed as many as one in five blacks in Virginia lost their right to vote after being convicted for committing felonies. Via: Breitbart News

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Links 11/1/16

The Doctrine of Armed Exceptionalism LobeLog (resilc) How Putin Derailed the West Counterpunch. Resilc: “‘Why is Hillary Clinton so eager to intensify US involvement in Syria when US interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya have all gone so terribly wrong?’ The USG incentive system for DoD/CIA/State/USAID et al is more war and more interventions.” The fatal expense of American imperialism Boston Globe (furzy) Trade Traitors TPP Is Exciting. Let’s Make the Case for It. Bloomberg (resilc). Four alarm fires and bombings are exciting too, but not in a good way. 2016 Clinton camp blasts FBI ‘double standards’ BBC. This line of attack is unlikely to succeed. The FBI is consistently depicted as upstanding and competent in crime and CSI shows. The fact that the Obamamometer has basically thrown Clinton under the bus v. Comey says that he reads the public pulse more or less the same way. Spy told FBI that Russia wants to cultivate Trump: report The Hill (furzy). Mark Ames via e-mail: What we learned even in the 90s—there are never, ever any standards for a journalist writing about Russia. Ever. The more bigoted and fantastical, the better. And when your hack crap is completely 100% debunked by other revelations, no editor will ever, ever discipline you. The only way you can have problems with Russia journalism is if you step away from the herd. No editor will ever forgive you for it. And John Helmer debunked it more specifically by e-mail. Since his message was long, some key bits: My wife is linked to Putin – she’s Russian. I’m linked to Putin – his friend Oleg Deripaska tried to kill me. Fridman is busy exiting from Russia as fast as he can go – and may lose Vimpelcom Russia in consequence. The recent DoJ corruption penalty for Vimpelcom — $795M – indicates a reasonable lack of fondness on his part for the current US administration, but then Fridman has hired Richard Burt (Reagan-Bush) and Tom McLarty (Clinton) to “advise” – meaning lobby for him to get approvals from the Treasury, State and CIA for takeovers of fresh US assets, such as FreedomPop. And they are going through the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, so the Trump “connection” can’t be as bad as the Clintonites make out. Burt and McLarty are advisors to the LetterOne board, not directors on the Alfa Bank board. If Burt is considered a Trump man – e.g., , http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/donald-trump-campaign-lobbyist-russian-pipeline-229264 — how to explain he was vintage Reagan and Bush? I remember Burt well – short, narcissistic (adolescent acne the cause), not very bright, would do anything to please, especially for money: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/donald-trump-campaign-lobbyist-russian-pipeline-229264 If Burt is such a Trumpie, and McLarty a Clintonite, what happens when they want to use the office toilet at the same time? And then John Negroponte arrives, hustled by Stu Eizenstat (ex Carter) – does ideology get in their way, or do their money interests encourage them to form an orderly line? Look at this list of McLarty’s associates: http://maglobal.com/about-us/our-team/john-negroponte / And another desperate story at Slate, which I cringe at dignifying by linking to it: Was a Trump Server Communicating With Russia? I hate having to attack this garbage; recall Glenn Greenwald saying how he despised Trump yet excoriating the MSM going all in running any and every fact-challenged or badly stretched attack on Trump, when there is plenty of bona-fide dirt on him already. Outsourcing this again to Ames who has seen more of this than I have: The super-secret server linkup is one of the most inane supermarket spy pulp fantasies I’ve seen. It’s cartoon-bad. Most conspiracy theorists work a lot harder on their inane inventions than this. It relies on total ignorance, on a cartoonish grasp of how linkups would work. And Helmer again: A computer channel to a bank that doesn’t do the one thing banks are meant to do – transfer money. In the forensics of sex crimes, is that one of those Jimmy Carter “adulteries in the mind”? FT endorsement: For all her weaknesses, Clinton is the best hope Financial Times. Surprising amount of opposition in the comments section (as in lots) given reader demographics. And the US is now the FT’s biggest market. Donald Trump Used Legally Dubious Method to Avoid Paying Taxes New York Times. Par for the course for the New York Times. Article hyperventilates about supposedly improper behavior by Trump, yet the basis for the case is that what he did was later made impermissible. I deducted interest I paid on my one little student loan in the early 1980s because prior to the 1986 Tax Reform Act, all consumer interest was tax deductible. By the standards of the Times’ fulminating, what I did then was similarly “legally dubious.” Help me. On top of that, from what I infer from this piece, which is not at all clear on what Trump supposedly did (it tries to make his sin about failure to report, which sounds like a stretch; the IRS does have audit powers), it still appears that Lee Sheppard’s analysis of why what Trump did in 1995 was kosher then but not kosher later is the best account to date. And that was out a full month ago. Her article specifically discussed why the cancellation of debt income did not appear on his tax return at the time. I am putting the key part of her discussion (it was unpaywalled for weeks but now Tax Analysts has hidden it again) at the very end of this post so the geeky can see what a stretch the Times’ treatment is.

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Trump visit to Britain still unfixed nine months after PM May's invitation: sources

LONDON (Reuters) - Nine months after Prime Minister Theresa May invited President Donald Trump for a formal state visit to Britain, no arrangements have yet been made and there is no sign of the visit taking place soon, U.S. and British officials said. Discussions between Washington and London about a Trump visit have continued, said one official who asked not to be named, but so far the White House has not signaled when and how the president wants to proceed. May s invitation to Trump during a visit to Washington a few days after he took office sparked controversy in Britain. Just hours after she left the White House, Trump announced his widely-criticized ban on travel from Muslim-majority countries. Such is the controversy that some officials on both sides of the Atlantic are privately having second thoughts about the visit, worried about street demonstrations that might greet Trump in London and other British cities. There have been signs of relief in some quarters that he has yet to appear on Her Majesty s schedule, said a British official who spoke on condition of anonymity. Given Trump s penchant for showmanship and his pre-presidential visits to the two golf courses he owns in Scotland, many Trump-watchers expected Britain to be one of the first stops on any presidential European tour. White House representatives told British officials at the time of the invite that Trump had accepted. But a senior U.S. government official told Reuters in July that Trump had no plans to visit Britain in the near future. A full-scale state visit to Britain involves considerable pomp. Upon arriving in London, the president would be greeted by Queen Elizabeth and other members of the Royal Family at a ceremony near the Houses of Parliament. Some British opponents of Trump including former Labour Party leader Ed Miliband have promised to organize protests should he visit. We remain in the same position with the Trump visit The queen extended an invitation to President Trump to visit the UK, it was accepted, and there is no change to those plans. But a date has not been set, a spokesman for the British Embassy in Washington said. We re looking forward to welcoming President Trump to the UK, the spokesman added. U.S. officials, including Trump aides and spokespeople and representatives of the U.S. Embassy in London, did not respond to detailed emails requesting comment.

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North Korean mock-up birthday video shows missiles blowing up U.S.

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea put on a musical show to mark the birthday of founding father Kim Il Sung, which ended with a mock-up video of missiles engulfing the United States in flames, prompting cheers from the audience and smiles from current leader Kim Jong Un. North Korea’s state television aired footage of a choral performance attended by Kim Jong Un, the elder Kim’s grandson, on Sunday, a day after a huge military parade in Pyongyang, which also marked the 105th birth anniversary of Kim Il Sung. The singing was followed by footage of its test-firing of a missile in February which, in the video, was joined by other missiles shooting into sky, passing over the Pacific and exploding in giant balls of flames in the United States. The video ended with a picture of the American flag in flames, overlapping row after row of white crosses in a cemetery. (reut.tv/2orqo6d) “When the performance was over, all the performers and participants in the military parade broke into enthusiastic cheers of ‘hurrah!’,” state run KCNA news agency said. State TV footage showed leader Kim smiling and waving in return. “The Dear Supreme Leader waved back to them and congratulated the artistes on their successful performance,” KCNA said. North Korea said in February that it had successfully tested a new type of medium- to long-range ballistic missile, the Pukguksong-2, propelled by a solid-fuel engine. During Saturday’s military parade it displayed what appeared to be new intercontinental ballistic missiles. And a day later it conducted a failed missile test, which drew international condemnation. North Korea regularly threatens to destroy the United States and amid heightened tension on the Korean peninsula, it has escalated a war of words, warning of full-out nuclear war if Washington takes military action against it. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, on a trip to Asia, has repeatedly warned that the “era of strategic patience” with North Korea is over and on Wednesday said it would meet any attack with an “overwhelming response”.

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South Africa's Ramaphosa, Dlamini-Zuma formally nominated to run for president of ANC

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa s ruling African National Congress formally nominated Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and former cabinet minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma as the only candidates to run for the presidency of the party at a conference on Sunday. The official nominations, announced by an election official, come after months of campaigning across Africa s most industrialized economy set the stage for the start of voting by 4,776 delegates in the tight race between the two candidates.

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Area Liberal No Longer Recognizes Fanciful, Wildly Inaccurate Mental Picture Of Country He Lives In - The Onion - America's Finest News Source

Man Wearing ‘Jewmerica’ T-Shirt Never Dreamed He’d See This Day SAND SPRINGS, OK—Feeling a mixture of intense pride and abject disbelief after news networks called the 2016 presidential election in favor of Donald Trump, local man Terry Williams, who is currently wearing a T-shirt adorned with the word “Jewmerica,” told reporters late Tuesday night that he never dreamed he’d see this day during his lifetime. Nation Throws Off Tyrannical Yoke Of Moderate Respect For Women WASHINGTON—Political experts are hailing Donald Trump’s historic presidential victory early Wednesday as a resounding declaration that the nation is finally ready to cast off the tyrannical yoke of moderate respect for women that has suffocated the citizens of this country for generations. Nation Elects First Black-Hearted President WASHINGTON—Shattering a barrier long thought unbreakable in the United States, Donald Trump, the 70-year-old billionaire real estate mogul from New York, became the first black-hearted man in history to win the American presidency, in the early hours of Wednesday morning. Nation’s Optimists Need To Shut The Fuck Up Right Now WASHINGTON—Saying their rosy attitude about the state of the election was not helping anything given what is currently transpiring, sources confirmed Tuesday night that the nation’s optimists need to seriously shut the fuck up as soon as humanly fucking possible. Anderson Cooper Informs Viewers CNN Just Minutes Away From First Significant Piece Of Information Of Day NEW YORK—Roughly two hours into the network’s live nine-hour-long “Election Night In America” programming block, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper informed viewers Tuesday evening he is only moments away from delivering the first piece of genuinely significant information of the day.

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Assassins Are Killing Ukraine’s Rebel Chiefs, but on Whose Orders? - The New York Times

MOSCOW — All died far from the front lines in circumstances unrelated to military action. They died in elaborate ambushes, car bomb attacks and, in one case, a elevator. The latest died on Wednesday in an explosion in his office. The staccato of about half a dozen assassinations of commanders in the separatist army in eastern Ukraine has become one of the riddles of the war there since 2015, when the first unexplained killings of Cossack militia leaders occurred. Ukrainian officials have denied any involvement in the killings, while welcoming them for thinning the ranks of the breakaway military. The authorities in Kiev say the deaths point to either infighting in the separatist leadership or efforts by Russia to consolidate control by eliminating erratic, if popular, local commanders on their own side. The assassinations could ease peace talks Ukraine had refused direct negotiations with the rebel leadership as long as men it deemed war criminals held senior posts. Rebel officials blamed Ukraine for the latest death, of Mikhail Tolstykh, best known by his nom de guerre, Givi. The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, denied any Russian role. Mr. Tolstykh died early Wednesday when a rocket was fired from a portable launcher into the window of his office, a separatist news agency reported. The blast blew out windows and started a fire. A Ukrainian military spokesman, Aleksandr Motuzyanik, suggested to journalists in Kiev that Mr. Tolstykh’s own soldiers might be to blame in a fragging episode, or the killing of an officer. His unit, Mr. Motuzyanik said, suffered heavy losses in a recent of fighting near the town of Avdiivka, creating “many enemies and . ” The other victims of the assassinations include Arsen Pavlov, who went by the nickname Motorola and was killed in the elevator bombing Aleksei Mozgovoy, a former restaurant cook turned commander of a unit called the Ghost Brigade and Aleksandr Bednov, who went by the nickname Batman. The European Union placed Mr. Pavlov, a Russian citizen, on sanctions lists after he boasted in an interview of shooting 15 Ukrainian soldiers who were taken prisoner during the fight for the Donetsk city airport in 2015. Mr. Tolstykh also played a prominent role in that battle and appeared in a video forcing kneeling, captured Ukrainian soldiers to eat the cloth Ukrainian flag insignia from their uniforms. The assassinations have caused enough worry among rebel commanders that a year ago Aleksandr Khodakovsky, leader of the Vostok battalion, insinuated a Russian role in a post on the social network LiveJournal. “I ask you again,” he wrote in a sarcastic letter addressed to Russian authorities that noted the car bombings and machine gun bursts in earlier attacks, “if it comes to taking measures against me, try to do it in a way that others don’t suffer. ”

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Obama says U.S. cannot wall itself off from economic globalization

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Friday that globalization is a fact that “we’re not going to be able to build a wall around” but that it was important to work to shape the process so that it benefits not just big companies but small firms as well. The U.S. leader, speaking at a news conference with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, said the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal currently being worked on has taken into account some of the weaknesses and criticisms of the North American Free Trade Agreement and sought to address those.

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Congress will raise debt ceiling, has many options: Ryan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress will pass legislation to raise the federal debt ceiling and lawmakers have a number of options for avoiding default, House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said on Thursday. “We will pass legislation to make sure we pay our debts and we will not hit the debt ceiling. We’ll do this before the debt ceiling,” Ryan said during a tax reform event at a Boeing plant in Washington state. “There are many different options in front of us on how we achieve that,” he added. “We pay our debts in this country. We will continue to do so.” Later, in an interview with CNBC, Ryan said he had considered the option of attaching legislation raising the debt ceiling to a measure Congress passed recently extending money to veterans’ programs. The comments came after President Donald Trump said on Twitter that Congress could have avoided a “mess” if Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had taken his advice to link the debt ceiling and veterans’ funding measure. “That’s an option we were looking at but the VA deadline came up and we weren’t able to do that then,” Ryan told CNBC. Congress passed the veterans’ measure in early August and Trump signed it August 12. “I’m really not that worried about this, we have plenty of options ahead of us” to raise the debt ceiling, Ryan said, adding that he did not interpret Trump’s tweets as “going after me.” The speaker sidestepped a question as to whether the options included a “clean” hike of the debt ceiling, saying he did not want to “negotiate to the media.” House conservative Republicans have been pushing for a variety of add-ons to a debt limit bill, such as deep spending cuts or the sale of government assets. The government bumped up against its statutory limit on borrowing at just under $20 trillion in March. Since then, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has had to take “extraordinary” measures to stave off a default until Congress agrees to raise the Treasury’s borrowing capability. The Trump administration had been hoping Congress would pass a debt limit bill before embarking on a long summer recess.

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Trump is the Nation’s Abuser-in-Chief

Trump is the Nation’s Abuser-in-Chief Trump is the Nation’s Abuser-in-Chief By 129 As an emotional abuse survivor, I get an eerie feeling watching Donald Trump. In fact, a checklist of 30 tactics used by an emotionally abusive partner , published by the blog Live Bold and Bloom , reads like Donald Trump’s debate prep to-do list. One of the telltale signs of such abuse, for example, is rooted in humiliation: “They humiliate you, put you down, or make fun of you in front of other people.” This seems to be a cornerstone of Trump’s political speech — like making fun of a disabled reporter , or placing the women who accuse Hillary Clinton’s husband of sexual misconduct in the audience at the last debate. (I wonder if Trump has ever heard that expression about glass houses and throwing stones.) “They accuse you or blame you for things you know aren’t true.” For example, accusing Hillary of laughing at a rape victim, which she didn’t do . “They make excuses for their behavior, try to blame others, and have difficulty apologizing.” Like the “locker room talk” apology t hat wasn’t. Tilting At Women, an OtherWords cartoon by Khalil Bendib. “They call you names, give you unpleasant labels, or make cutting remarks under their breath.” Remember Trump’s use of pejoratives like Crooked Hillary, Lyin’ Ted Cruz, Little Marco Rubio, Low Energy Jeb Bush, and “Pocahontas”? (That last one refers to Elizabeth Warren.) There’s even a Donald Trump insult generator online based on the candidate’s penchant for name-calling. “They make subtle threats or negative remarks with the intent to frighten or control you. “ In the second debate: “You’d be in jail,” Donald threatened Hillary, if he becomes president. “They play the victim and try to deflect blame to you rather than taking personal responsibility.” After the 2005 video of Trump boasting about sexually assaulting women was leaked, he claimed the entire world was in a conspiracy against him — the media, the Clintons, the Republicans. Poor Donald, everyone is calling him out for the racist and misogynist that he is. Most familiar to me as an abuse survivor were Trump’s deflections of Hillary’s jabs during the second debate. In my experience, any time you confront an abuser with their past bad behaviors, you get one of three responses. First, they might say they never did that. That thing never happened. This is called gaslighting . The name comes from a 1944 film called Gaslight . It’s used when someone attempts to manipulate you into doubting your own lived experiences. Second, they’ll turn your critique back onto you. You don’t like that they humiliated you in front of your friends? You’re too sensitive. That’s your problem. It’s just one more item on the long list of things that are wrong with you . Last, they reply to your critique of them with what they don’t like about you. And sometimes, the responses can be quite arbitrary. Oh, Hillary doesn’t like that Trump bragged about assaulting women? Well, Bill Clinton had affairs. Never mind that Bill isn’t running for president, or that his well-litigated past isn’t the issue at hand. True, Bill Clinton won’t go down in history for being faithful, but that doesn’t answer the question about Trump’s record with women and his qualifications to be president. Emotional abuse can be hard to pinpoint when you’re the one being abused. So Donald Trump has just provided us all with a valuable service by demonstrating before a live TV audience what emotional abuse looks like in action. The best way to deal with a bully? Remove them from your life.

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As Louisiana Floodwaters Recede, the Scope of Disaster Comes Into View - The New York Times

DENHAM SPRINGS, La. — Kathryn Morgan, 18, stood on the shore of the neighborhood, waiting for a boat and taking stock. Home, truck, school, workplace, her friends’ homes: all gone, flooded out. There was less certainty about the fate of her dog, left days ago with some food in a portable kennel. Or the bassinet and piles of baby clothes left behind when she and her daughter, Charlie, were picked up in a boat and taken to the safe and dry second story of her godmother’s home. “It’s Louisiana, we always expect the ditches to fill when it rains,” said Ms. Morgan, who was returning from the first supply run in three days. This was not just the ditches. “It’s like a hurricane,” she said. “But without any warning. ” As the receding floodwaters continued to expose the magnitude of the disaster the state has been enduring, Louisiana officials said Tuesday that at least 11 people had died, and that about 30, 000 people had been rescued. Gov. John Bel Edwards acknowledged that the state did not know how many people were missing, but he said that nearly 8, 100 people had slept in shelters on Monday night and that some 40, 000 homes had been “impacted to varying degrees. ” “We are still very much in an emergency, response mode for much of the Florida parishes,” Mr. Edwards said, referring to an area east of the Mississippi River. “Saving life is the most important priority that we have. We’re going to dedicate every available response to that effort until it’s no longer required. ” In Louisiana, severe weather can often seem a trauma visited and revisited. But the disaster unfolding here this week fits into a recent and staggering pattern in more than states, where floods have rolled out at such a scale that scientists say they might be a occurrence. The cumulative, increasingly grim toll, from Maryland to South Carolina to Louisiana to Texas, includes scores of lives and billions of dollars in economic losses. Everywhere the same refrain — that it has never happened like this — has given rise to the same question: How should communities and families plan for deluges that are theoretically uncommon but now seem to play out with appalling regularity? “We’ve clearly had a rash of these things in the last year in the last 12 months, it’s just been incredible,” said Barry D. Keim, Louisiana’s state climatologist. “We’re learning a lot, but, unfortunately, it’s flooding a lot of people and causing a lot of problems. ” In Livingston Parish, which recorded more than 25 inches of rain in three days, unearthed coffins floated down main streets, and elementary schools became islands of shelter. The parish president’s house was flooded out, even though the house was not located in the federally designated flood zone when he moved into it — two weeks ago. “Grab what you can and get out,” is what the president, Layton Ricks, recalled a man telling him as he stood in the deepening lake of his driveway on Friday night. “This is going under. ” In an interview at the parish government building, Mr. Ricks played down his troubles, talking instead, between catches in his voice, of the staggering challenges faced by the poor and newly homeless of his parish. “What do they do?” he said, asking for them as much as for himself as the parish’s chief executive. “It’s ungodly what happened. ” After the interview, Mr. Ricks walked down the hallway to a small gathering of senior state and parish law enforcement officials. They hugged, and some wept. Just to the west in Baton Rouge, Louisiana’s capital, federal and state officials also grappled Tuesday with how to manage the fallout from the unnamed storm system that experts said carried enough precipitation to rival a hurricane. The administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, W. Craig Fugate, described the situation in Louisiana as “a very large disaster,” and the East Baton Rouge Parish authorities imposed a curfew from 10 p. m. to 6 a. m. Residents of 20 parishes are already eligible for federal disaster assistance. As Louisiana on Tuesday faced its second catastrophic flood in about five months, climate scientists elsewhere cautioned that the state was unlikely to be the last to confront a disaster like this one. “There’s definitely an increase in heavy rainfall due to climate change,” said John the state climatologist in Texas. “The actual increase from place to place is going to be variable because of the randomness of the weather. Some places will see a dramatic change. ” The blend of climate change and development in new areas has led to particularly dire flooding in places where systems were designed by people who were “assuming it was always going to rain the same way as 40 years ago,” said J. Marshall Shepherd, a professor at the University of Georgia and a former president of the American Meteorological Society. Despite years of warnings, and long histories of planning for emergencies, officials in saturated cities and counties have often found themselves responding to far graver challenges than they imagined. A strategy for a flash flood that comes and goes within hours can hardly keep pace when record rains fall, and plans for action are often refined on the fly. “We had a template before this disaster even happened,” said Allan H. Kittleman, the county executive in Howard County, Md. which had severe flooding last month. “Of course, you have to tweak it. ” In Louisiana on Tuesday, the miseries varied by geography. In Ascension Parish, officials were still handing out sandbags and urging evacuations. In Baton Rouge, the chore for emergency workers was going door to door to find the unreported missing, injured or dead. In Livingston Parish, the task had changed from a frantic flight to safety to attempts at return that were expected to end in heartbreak. “It’s not an emergency now,” said David Truxillo, 51, who pulled up to a submerged road with his wife, both of them with pistols on their hips and both debating whether a truck could make it through the water at this height (it could not, they decided). “It’s trying to see what we got left,” his wife, Tina, said. Definitely not the beehives in the backyard, the motorcycles, the camper or the shed. Maybe not the house. In a subdivision across this slowly resurfacing town, a team of family and friends were helping drag everything out of Jim Bridges’s waterlogged house, to which he had finally returned on Tuesday afternoon. Chairs, a television, beds, books, a piano, all of it in a long pile, like a barricade stretching across the front lawn. “For us to flood, half of Denham would have to flood,” Mr. Bridges, 70, recalled telling a concerned new neighbor a few years ago. He sighed. “A lot more than half of Denham flooded. ”

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BOOM! Black Activist Calls Black CA State Senator “Racist” For Supporting Mass Immigration: “A real man is Donald Trump”

Blacks in America are seeing the writing on the wall with the push for mass immigration to America and it s not a pretty picture. Barack Hussein Obama, America s first black president will do more to harm the black community in his reckless attempt to create a one-party system in America than any President in the history of the United States.The unnamed activists representing the Lost American Network group makes some great points: We in the black community We have seen videos of (Senator) Hall calling other organizations out there that are predominately white, racists. We would like to send a message to him. We feel that he is not representing the black community, so therefore, we feel that he is racist. We wanna know why black politicians like him have turned their back on the black community. Unemployment is up to 70% Mass immigration takes away jobs and benefits from the black community. Mass immigration takes away medical care and housing assistance for the homeless.Watch her outstanding message to Congressman Hall here:

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Factbox: The companies making money from Illinois’ unpaid bills

(Reuters) - During a 10-month period starting in November 2015, four firms qualified by Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner’s administration purchased $1.12 billion in unpaid bills due scores of vendors providing critical goods and services. In return, the firms stood to pocket at least $118 million in state-funded late-payment penalties as of late September. Firm Receivables acquired*  Late-payment penalty* Vendor Assistance Program $707.2 million                $82.4 million        Illinois Financing Partners  $275.4 million                   $18.6 million Vendor Capital Finance LLC   $145 million                  $16.9 million Payplant                     $475,330                        $39,530 *As of Sept. 28, 2016 Source: Illinois Department of Central Management Services Vendor Assistance Program (VAP) VAP’s February 2014 disclosure, its latest available, identifies six funding sources and 12 owners, including Citibank N.A. and the consulting firm owned by Democratic political strategist Patti Solis Doyle, Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign manager. Another VAP investor listed on that document is Manchester Securities, which is owned by billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer and had a 4 percent stake. State records show Singer donated $250,000 to Rauner in September 2014, two months before Rauner’s election and 14 months before the launch of the Rauner administration’s Vendor Support Initiative. Argentina dubbed an affiliated Singer-owned company a “vulture” investor for its hardball tactics in a decade-plus legal battle with the South American nation over defaulted sovereign debt. At one point, the Singer firm had an Argentine naval training vessel briefly impounded by Ghana in an attempt to extract money from Buenos Aires. Illinois Financing Partners (IFP) Illinois Financing Partners, LLC’s involvement in the program is backed by a $500 million Bank of America commitment, according to an IFP filing with the state in April. IFP’s purchases have consisted entirely of overdue Health Alliance bills. The group’s president, founder and majority investor is Lindsay Trittipoe, who holds a 58 percent stake in the company. IFP’s minority investors include former two-term Illinois Republican Governor Jim Edgar, who is IFP’s board chairman, and former U.S. Representative Jerry Costello, an Illinois Democrat. Both hold 1 percent stakes in the company. Vendor Capital Finance LLC A February 2014 disclosure to Illinois, the most recent available, lists New York municipal finance consultant Le Chen as VCF’s chief executive officer. LeRose, LLC, of which Chen is identified as the lone member in state business records, reported a 6 percent ownership stake in VCF. With a nearly 94 percent stake, VCF’s largest owner was ER Illinois LLC, based at the same New York address as Richmond Hill Investment Co., LP, VCF’s filing showed. Payplant LLC The Palo Alto, California-based firm was co-founded by Ronjon Nag, an inventor and smartphone pioneer, and Neerav Berry, a computer engineering expert and co-founder of a mobile app store platform acquired by Blackberry. A February 2014 filing with Illinois showed Nag and wife Sally Ann Rudd committing $5 million to Payplant with another $5 million coming from the Berry & Pandey Living Trust. The program targets invoices from contractors providing vital state services 90 or more days overdue. To date, Illinois has designated a variety of vendors, including some that supply state employees and retirees with medical services, feed prison inmates and keep Illinois’ computer systems functioning. The outside groups front unpaid vendors 90 percent of the face value of their receivables. Whenever Illinois eventually pays those bills, vendors keep the remaining 10 percent of what they are owed, then forward the balance and late-payment penalties to the lenders. SOURCES: Illinois Department of Central Management Services

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Trump's personal lawyer says been asked to testify to House panel September 5

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen said on Tuesday he had been asked to testify on Sept. 5 before the House Intelligence Committee. “I am committed to complying with the subpoena by the House Permanent Select Intelligence Committee, including the request to testify on September 5th,” Cohen told Reuters, confirming an account first reported by Bloomberg News. The House committee is among those investigating alleged Russian meddling in the U.S. election and any possible collusion with the president’s campaign or associates. It approved a subpoena for Cohen on May 31, but the committee had not announced any date for his testimony.

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BAM! HANNITY UNLOADS On Cruz Over Delegates [Audio]

Wow! Did Hannity go too far with Cruz or did he not go far enough?GOP presidential candidate Texas Senator Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and talk radio and Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity engaged in a testy exchange over the delegate process on Hannity s radio show on Tuesday.Hannity began the interview by asking, I think the number one question on the minds of Republicans right now is what is going on with the delegates. For example, if you can explain to people that your campaign, that you have every right, within the rules, to talk to candidates, that are pledged on a first ballot, to candidate A or candidate C, you being candidate B. And that tell us what that process is. Cruz answered that isn t what people are concerned about, and are instead concerned about policy issues and beating Democratic candidate former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Cruz further stated that the media loves to obsess about process. This process, and this whining from the Trump campaign is all silly. It s very, very simple . https://youtu.be/En5jPy8SzjUHannity then cut in to say, I m on social media, with millions of people. I have 550 radio stations. And I have the top-rated cable in my hour, all across the board. And I am telling you, that people are telling me, that they find this whole process confusing. He further stated that this wasn t a process question. It s an integrity of the election question. And everybody s asking me this question. So, I want I m giving you an opportunity to explain it. Cruz responded, Sean, the only people asking this question, are the hardcore Donald Trump supporters. Hannity again cut in to ask, Senator, why do you this? Every single time you you ve got to stop. Every time I have you on the air, and I ask a legitimate question, you try to throw this in my face. I m getting sick of it. I ve had you on more than any other candidate, on radio and TV. So, if I ask you, Senator, a legitimate question to explain to the audience, why don t you just answer it? Cruz then said, Sean, can I answer your question without being interrupted? Cruz then talked about the results in Utah, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Colorado, and Wyoming, all of which Cruz has won. He added, Over 1.3 million people voted in those 5 states. We won all 5. All of this noise and complaining and whining has come from the Trump campaign, because they don t like the fact that they ve 5 elections in a row, that Republicans are uniting behind our campaign. So, they re screaming, on Drudge, and it s getting echoed, this notion of voterless election. It is nonsense. They are making it up. Over 1.3 million people voted. We won landslides in all 5. Cruz continued, Now, there is a second component, beyond the elections, which is the individual delegates are elected by the people. Donald Trump s campaign does not know how to organize on the grassroots. And so, when the delegates are elected, conservative activists, real conservative activists show up, and they elect delegates, and we are winning those elections over and over and over again. The Donald Trump campaign doesn t know what they re doing. They don t show up. In Colorado, the Donald Trump team was handing out flyers asking their supporters to vote for a slate of delegates, they included Cruz delegates on their slate. They just they didn t even know how type up a piece of paper without getting it wrong. In Washington state, when Washington state elected their delegates, three days before the election, the Donald Trump campaign, in a panic, realized Washington state was getting ready to elect their delegates. They sent out an emergency email to their Washington supporters, but they screwed up, and sent it to their Washington, DC supporters, instead of their Washington state supporters. I cannot help that the Donald Trump campaign does not seem capable of running a lemonade stand. Elections are won by voters and grassroots activists showing up and voting for the candidate they support. Via: Breitbart News

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Sailer In TAKIMAG On The UVA Rape Hoax: “Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s Malice in Blunderland”

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Indian and Chinese defense forces must maintain cooperation: Indian Foreign Secretary

BEIJING (Reuters) - Indian Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said Indian and Chinese troops must maintain cooperation to ensure that a recent confrontation on their common border did not happen again. Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a BRICS summit in the southeastern Chinese city of Xiamen, Jaishankar said peace in border areas was a prerequisite for India-China development and the two countries had agreed to make more efforts to enhance mutual trust.

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France says Venezuela talks to take place, warns of sanctions

PARIS (Reuters) - Venezuela s government and opposition will hold a round of talks in the Dominican Republic on Wednesday, France s foreign minister said on Tuesday, warning Caracas that it risked EU sanctions if it failed to engage in negotiations. Venezuela was convulsed for months by demonstrations against leftist President Nicolas Maduro, accused by critics of knocking the oil-rich country into its worst-ever economic crisis and bringing it to the brink of dictatorship. I was happy to learn that dialogue with the opposition would restart tomorrow in the Dominican Republic, Jean-Yves Le Drian said in a statement after meeting his Venezuelan counterpart, Jorge Arreaza Montserrat, in Paris. Venezuela s Democratic Unity Coalition said it would send a delegation to meet with Dominican President Danilo Medina to discuss the conditions under which dialogue could be held, but denied that any talks as such had begun. The invitation by (Medina) does NOT represent the start of a formal dialogue with the government, the coalition said in a statement. To begin serious negotiations, we demand immediate concrete actions that show true willingness to solve problems rather than to buy time. The statement reiterated long standing opposition demands including the release of political prisoners, respect for the opposition-run congress and measures to ease a crippling economic crisis. Le Drian said Wednesday s meeting would involve Medina and former Spanish Prime Minister Jos Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed his full support for the talks. The Secretary-General encourages the Venezuelan political actors to seize this opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to address the country s challenges through mediation and peaceful means, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement. Maduro routinely calls for dialogue with the opposition, but his adversaries see dialogue as a stalling mechanism that burnishes the government s image without producing concrete results. In a televised broadcast on Tuesday evening, he voiced renewed support for dialogue and said he was sending Socialist Party heavyweight Jorge Rodriguez to represent the government in the Dominican Republic. A dialogue process brokered by Zapatero and backed by the Vatican in 2016 did little to advance opposition demands. Many Maduro critics believe opposition leaders were duped in that dialogue process, and have grown suspicious of Zapatero as an intermediary. Like fellow-EU member Spain a few days earlier, Le Drian also warned Arreaza that if the situation continued there would be consequences. I reminded him of the risk of European sanctions and the need to rapidly see evidence from Venezuela that it is ready to relaunch negotiations with the opposition and engage in a sincere and credible process, he said.

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370 Economists Sign Letter Urging America Not To Vote For Donald Trump

By Jason Easley 5:03 pm 370 of nation's top economists have come together to urge the American people not to elect Donald Trump to be the next President Of The United States. 370 of nation’s top economists have come together to urge the American people not to elect Donald Trump to be the next President Of The United States. In the letter , the economists listed a dozen economic policy reasons why voters should not vote for Trump, but it as their conclusion that was stunning, “He promotes magical thinking and conspiracy theories over sober assessments of feasible economic policy options.Donald Trump is a dangerous, destructive choice for the country. He misinforms the electorate, degrades trust in public institutions with conspiracy theories, and promotes willful delusion over engagement with reality. If elected, he poses a unique danger to the functioning of democratic and economic institutions, and to the prosperity of the country. For these reasons, we strongly recommend that you do not vote for Donald Trump.” Trump’s thoughts on the economy are dangerous to the prosperity of the country. It isn’t just that Trump is a person of bad character who lacks any of the human traits that voters should seek in a president. It is also that his policies are nonsense. Economists don’t write these types of letters ever. The economists aren’t discussing partisan politics. They view Trump and his ideas as a threat to the American economy. Donald Trump’s economic ideas aren’t based in reality. Trump is selling a fantasy, and when 370 of the nation’s top economists warn that a vote for Trump is a dangerous choice for the country, voters would be wise to listen.

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Trump Tells ‘Morning Joe’ He ACTUALLY Plans To Start A Nuclear Arms Race (VIDEO)

On Thursday, Donald Trump did a huge favor for defense contractors when he tweeted that The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes. While this is obviously good news for companies involved in making a nuclear cold war (or a nuclear apocalypse) happen, it s bad news for everyone else.While some assumed that The Donald wasn t serious when he said that we need to build more nukes, he clarified to MSNBC s Morning Joe on Friday that he was very, very serious about his decision to provoke other nuclear-capable nations into building up a world-ending arsenal. Hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski spoke to the President-elect, and he informed them:Asked to respond to Trump s terrifying statement, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius explained that a nuclear arms race might be too much for even Trump s supporters: You can create space, but the space is then there to be able to negotiate, not to throw more wood on the fire. If you say, What I really do want is an arms race, you re going to lose the country. The country doesn t want another arms race. The country definitely doesn t want a nuclear arms race, but if Trump has his way our children will be learning to duck underneath their desks to shield themselves from a nuclear blast, or whatever ridiculous drill we will be forced to come up with thanks to our President s decision to enter us unto a new cold war.If you didn t consider Trump a serious threat to our nation before, you really should consider reassessing your views since on January 20 he will be the guy who can kick off exactly the scenario he tells us he wants.Watch the Morning Joe segment below:BREAKING: Trump to #morningjoe on the nukes tweet: 'Let it be an arms race' https://t.co/X9FMNtgKPK Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) December 23, 2016

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DC WAITRESS Who Admits To Being Prejudiced…Gets Big Surprise From White Trump Supporters After She Participated In Women’s March

Slowly but surely our nation will heal. It will take some time, and there will those who resist, but America is stronger than the hate of a small group of radicals who under Barack Obama s direction, have worked to intentionally divide us.A waitress at a Washington D.C. restaurant received a very generous tip and a warm message on her receipt from three men who were in town for President Donald Trump s inauguration.Rosalynd Harris, who works at Busboys and Poets in the northwest part of the nation s capital, told The Washington Post she was beaming with confidence Monday after taking part in the Women s March over the weekend.A group of men from west Texas entered the restaurant and started to chat with Harris. One of the men, who said he was a dentist, complimented her on her smile. Harris, who is black, told the Post she was admittedly a bit prejudice when the men, who were white, told her they were in town to support Trump.However, Harris didn t expect what would come next.After the men had left, Harris picked up their check and found that they left a heartwarming message and a generous tip. They left Harris a $450 tip on a $72.60 bill. Their message read:We rise by lifting others. A lovely act of kindness pic.twitter.com/S01SV3w8ts Busboys and Poets (@busboysandpoets) January 24, 2017 We may come from different cultures and may disagree on certain issues, but if everyone would share their smile and kindness like your beautiful smile, our country will come together as one people. Not race. Not gender. Just American. God Bless! -FOX News

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Megyn [sic] Kelly: Gowdy Triumphantly Comments on the Hillary Case Reopening

October 29, 2016 Weiner's revenge. Do Jews go to jail? He may be able to finagle this into some kind of legal cloak for himself. Can't stand Kelly's 'active listening' face. She has practiced keeping that big mandible shut - you can see her wanting to interrupt. Her neck strength must be immense. Studies show her jaw currently weighs 74.3 lbs. Holding it shut is a catch-22 as it grows through the act of holding itself shut (she cut her hair to decrease neck strain). Leading scientists/studies show, if she does not allow herself to become a mouth breather, that her mandible will triple in size by 3/10/2018. The growth tripling time will decrease by 6 mo's every month thereafter.

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Reporter Gets Bush’s CIA Director To Admit Waterboarding Is Torture Using VERY Clever Trick (VIDEO)

George Bush s former CIA director, Michael Hayden, has always had a very uncomfortable position on waterboarding. At times he seems to acknowledge that the technique which, as described by human rights groups, is best summed up as simulated drowning, is inhumane and constitutes torture. He recently told Donald Trump (a yuge fan of waterboarding) if he wanted to reinstate the practice that he would have to bring your own damn bucket because the CIA wouldn t go down that road again. On the other hand, Hayden s tenure as Bush s CIA head meant he oversaw extensive use of the technique on terror suspects. How do you square that round peg? Stunning levels of cognitive dissonance, of course!Hayden was put on the hotseat in an interview with Al Jazeera, in which reporter Mehdi Hasan effortlessly walked through the former intelligence officer s walls of hypocrisy to get at the kernal of truth at the center: Hayden isn t stupid, and he knows that waterboarding is torture.How do you get a man who has spent the last seven years denying he did anything wrong to admit that he did? Flip the question around and ask whether other people should be using waterboarding. Hayden admits in that case it s completely different. Hayden: I m not giving an answer!Hasan: Okay. If [Syrian] President Assad waterboards Syrian rebels, you will not call that torture?Hayden: Oh, that s completely different.Hasan: Why? So if America does it it s fine, but if Syria does it it s bad.Hayden starts getting very defensive, arguing that Syria wouldn t waterboard safely (there s an oxymoron) and that when the CIA does it, they do it the proper way, which he then describes. Hasan isn t impressed. Good point, Hasan deadpans. Series of near drownings, bubbles rising through open full mouth. That is not torture in your view? Hayden concludes by saying the legal opinion at the time was no and that America had a right to use the method because they were careful. So for those keeping score at home, the logic is: America s use of waterboarding during the Bush presidency was not torture, but any use of waterboarding by other nations or by a current or future American president is torture. Spoken like a true member of the Bush Administration: It s never bad when we do it was their unspoken motto.// < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&#038;version=v2.3"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); // ]]&gt;Is waterboarding torture? Do you think [waterboarding] is torture? Mehdi Hasan asks former CIA Director Michael Hayden. Watch the full episode: aje.io/pr2dPosted by UpFront on Thursday, March 31, 2016Featured image via Al Jazeera screengrab

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House Democratic leaders urging 'no' vote on spending bill: CNN reporter

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Steny Hoyer, the No. 2 Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives, said on Tuesday that House Democratic leaders are asking their rank-and-file members to vote against a stopgap government funding bill, according to a CNN reporter on Twitter. A House Republican aide said earlier on Tuesday that the spending bill would fund the government until Jan. 19, and include funding for disaster aid and a five-year extension of the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

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FDA fees for product review would more than double under Trump budget

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The cost to healthcare companies for U.S. regulatory review of their products, including drugs and medical devices, would more than double under the Trump administration’s proposed 2018 budget. For 2018, the Trump administration has budgeted over $2 billion in fees to be collected by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration from industry, twice as much as in 2017, according to budget documents released on Thursday. Citing a constrained budget environment, the proposed budget said industries that benefit from the FDA’s approval “can and should pay for their share.” In return, the budget said it also offered measures that would help speed up the approval process for new drugs and other products. The FDA has been criticized by lawmakers for not being quick enough at approving drugs, and President Donald Trump told Congress earlier this year that he aimed to speed up the approval of drugs. The FDA has been charging companies to review their products since 1992. Most of the user fees collected are for prescription drugs - around $866 million estimated in 2017 - and generic drugs - around $324 million, according to the FDA website. The FDA’s 2017 budget was $5.1 billion, the website said. The budget does not say if the fee increases would be evenly spread or directed in a particular area. The budget did not provide specifics on what measures to speed up approvals might include.

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CNN ANCHOR Piles On Bill O’Reilly With Silly Sex Allegation…Once Dated Anthony Weiner

The accusations surrounding Bill O Reilly have been relentless. Nothing has been proven but in the news business you have to be aware of every move. Our litigious society will sue for any reason and that s just what this is .While appearing on his program early on in her career, Powers told CNN s Anderson Cooper that O Reilly kept screwing up fellow female commentator Margaret Hoover s name on air. Like Powers, Hoover has a blonde mane. Powers says O Reilly didn t know their names, but simply knew them for being in a sea of blonde women who appeared on Fox News.Powers said O Reilly thanked them for their blonde-ness. The pundit said she approached O Reilly s executive producer about what she believed to be his abhorrent behavior. She said she wouldn t appear on his show again if he acted like this and demanded an apology.But she wasn t getting one. O Reilly refused.Powers said she quit O Reilly s show for three years and then returned. We actually ended up having a quite a good relationship, she said.Powers said management brushed it off, saying that O Reilly was an Archie Bunker type, referring to the racist father figure in the priceless 1970s sitcom All in the Family. She then went to her boss, who said there was nothing they could do. She also complained to former Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes who she recalled saying, It s Bill. He s a jerk. Nobody likes him. And then Roger said, you know, Bill likes to put up dirty pictures and ask pretty girls to talk about them. And then he said, what am I going to do, he makes so much money, what am I going to do? Powers said she quit O Reilly s show for three years and then returned. We actually ended up having a quite a good relationship, she said.The pundit knows a little something about dealing with so-called powerful men in public life.In 2002, she briefly dated Anthony Weiner. Initially, she defended him. But we all know how that soap opera turned out. When news of what his secret sexting and sending out pictures of his ding dong came to light, she called for his resignation from Congress.Read more: Daily Caller

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Michigan Senator urges Congress to retain electric car tax credit

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Democratic U.S. Senator from Michigan on Wednesday urged his fellow lawmakers to retain a $7,500 tax credit for people who buy electronic vehicles instead of eliminating it as Republicans have proposed. In a letter seen by Reuters, Senator Gary Peters wrote to Senate leaders that “a new generation of jobs and families will be supported by electric vehicles. Eliminating important economic incentives for electric vehicles would be a step in the wrong direction.” Last week, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives proposed to eliminate the tax credit, which could hurt automakers such as General Motors Co (GM.N), Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) and Nissan Motor Co (7201.T). Republicans in both chambers of Congress backed by U.S. President Donald Trump, also a Republican, are working on separate plans to give the U.S. tax code its biggest overhaul since the 1980s. Republican senators are set to introduce a tax proposal on Thursday. A spokesman for Senator Orrin Hatch, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, did not immediately comment. Critics of the credit say electric vehicle buyers tend to be wealthier than average and do not need subsidies. Automakers have invested billions in electric vehicles and announced plans to shift significant production to plug-in models. Current law allows automakers to use the credit, which phases out after an automaker hits 200,000 plug-in vehicles sold. Electric vehicles have expensive batteries that make them pricier than gasoline-powered vehicles. GM and Tesla may hit the limit for vehicles that can get the tax credit by 2019. Environmental groups and an auto industry trade group oppose the House proposal, which would kick in at the end of this year. GM vowed to fight, saying the credits are “an important customer benefit that can help accelerate the acceptance of electric vehicles.” Tesla declined to comment. Former President Barack Obama unsuccessfully proposed hiking the tax credit for electric vehicles to $10,000 and converting it to a point-of-sale rebate. Automakers face mandates from California and a dozen other states to produce a rising number of zero-emission vehicles and have said the credits are essential to meeting requirements.

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Even After Charlottesville, If You Hit Protesters With A Car, Republicans Want To Protect You

This year America has seen an interesting and terrifying new technique for dealing with protesters. Republicans, buoyed by their base s enthusiasm for physically harming people who inconvenience them, took a hard look at all of the things being protested across the country. They saw natives at Standing Rock, young African-Americans at Black Lives Matter rallies, and a pretty wide assortment at Donald Trump s inauguration, and they decided the best way to deal with it was to hit them with cars.That s not hyperbole. I guarantee you have had at least one argument on Facebook with a relative or old high school friend who sees pictures of protests and jokes about running over the people in the streets. The GOP decided to codify that behavior by writing laws that would reduce or remove penalties for drivers who do just that.Beginning with North Dakota, lawmakers in six states began to pen a series of proposals that all looked very similar to each other. House Bill 1203 would set the tone:Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a driver of a motor vehicle who unintentionally causes injury or death to an individual obstructing vehicular traffic on a public road, street, or highway, is not guilty of an offense.Similar laws cropped up in Florida, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Texas. These heartless laws were part of a larger effort by Republicans to stifle dissent on a larger scale; a proposal in Oregon would have required schools to expel protesters even peripherally involved in a riot, while one in Ferguson, Missouri the heartland of the Black Lives Matter movement would have created an offense called unlawful traffic interference with which protesters could be charged if they stood in the path of any important white people on their way to do important white people things.It took until the murder of Heather Heyer for Fox Nation to take down a video posted in humor on their website entitled Here s A Reel Of Cars Plowing Through Protesters Trying To Block The Road. I guess this like what a conscience looks like on Fox?But even after the events of this last weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia, those GOP legislators are still defending their bills. On Sunday, Texas Rep. Pat Fallon was wondering if the far left knew the difference between a street and a highway. He deleted his social media posts, but his proposal remains:A person operating a motor vehicle who injures another person with the motor vehicle is not liable for the injury if, at the time of the injury:(1) the person operating the motor vehicle was exercising due care; and (2) the person injured was blocking traffic in a public right-of-way while participating in a protest or demonstration.Any wild guesses what it might take in Texas to prove you were exercising due care when you hit that troublesome agitator?Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

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Iraq Protesters Leave Baghdad Green Zone on Cleric’s Order - The New York Times

BAGHDAD — After a day of sleeping, praying and even swimming in the Green Zone, the government citadel historically off limits to ordinary Iraqis, protesters began leaving Sunday evening on orders from the man who had sent them: Moktada the influential Shiite cleric. In a statement issued from the holy city of Najaf in southern Iraq, Mr. Sadr directed his followers to leave the Green Zone in an orderly fashion, to chant for Iraq and not a sect, and to help clean the space they had occupied. A day earlier, hundreds of protesters demanding an end to corruption stormed the fortified Green Zone in dramatic scenes that hinted at revolution. But by Sunday evening the episode had become something less: an affirmation of Mr. Sadr’s sway over the street, but one aimed at pressuring the government to enact promised reforms rather than bringing it down. The question in the days ahead is whether Prime Minister Haider who is Shiite, and the rest of Iraq’s ruling elite can come together to form a new cabinet of capable ministers, and not loyalists to a party or sect, something that Mr. Sadr has demanded and Mr. Abadi has promised. Since announcing last summer a set of measures to improve governance, Mr. Abadi has been thwarted repeatedly by parties and politicians who have long depended on Iraq’s system of patronage. They include the previous prime minister, Nuri Kamal . The protests, which had been percolating for weeks and culminated on Saturday with the breaching of the Green Zone walls, were organized as a show of support for the promised changes. On Sunday, Mr. Abadi’s office distributed photographs of him surveying the hall of Parliament, surrounded by broken glass and damaged furniture. A statement also said the prime minister had ordered the arrests of those who had attacked lawmakers or damaged property. Later, Mr. Abadi met with President Fuad Masum and Salim the speaker of Parliament. In a joint statement, the leaders said they condemned the storming of Parliament, and promised to continue meeting over the next days to “assure progress in reforming the political process. ” In his statement, Mr. Sadr demanded that Parliament meet soon and approve a new cabinet. If not, he said, he will push for the disbanding of the government and call for early elections. Mr. Sadr said the departure of his followers from the Green Zone had been done out of “respect” for a Shiite pilgrimage underway, and he vowed that they would return to the streets on Friday, typically the day of protest in Iraq. Inside the Green Zone on Sunday, protesters who had spent the night in an area called Celebration Square, once a parade ground for Saddam Hussein, seemed to luxuriate in having reached a space long forbidden to them. For many it is a place that has symbolized corruption and dysfunction. “I used to hear about the Green Zone and used to ask myself and my friends, ‘What does the Green Zone mean?’ ” said Ali Mustafa, 21, a college student. “Entering the Green Zone was like a dream for me. ” Diyab Abdullah, 74, who described himself as a member of the Communist Party, which decades ago had a foothold in Iraqi politics, said he had walked four hours on Saturday to participate in the protest. “I did not get tired, because my goal is to take part in kicking out this failed government,” he said. Many of the demonstrators, who had gathered near the American Embassy, said they hoped to galvanize a movement that would lead to the dismantling of the political system and its sectarian quotas, which they blamed the United States for establishing more than a decade ago. They railed at their leaders, many in power since the earliest days of the American occupation. Talib Mohammed, an amputee who said he had lost his leg in a battle against the United States last decade, said he was demanding his rights “from the Americans and all who stole from the people and became millionaires. ” He added, “We are here to change all of the faces that have been brought by the Americans. ” The United States Embassy issued a statement on Sunday that expressed concern about the but said all Iraqis should work to “move the political and economic reform process forward” while combating the other threat to the country, the Islamic State. While recognizing the right to peaceful protest, the embassy said, it joined others in “urging restraint and respect for constitutional institutions and respect for the rights of others. ” Though the crisis seemed to be defused for the moment, Iraq’s political system is in disarray. Lawmakers, some of them caught up in the occupation, expressed pessimism. Haitham a Shiite member of Parliament, said, “This crisis will break the country instead of fixing it. ” He called for Mr. Abadi’s resignation and said “a new government must be formed. ” He blamed Mr. Abadi for Saturday’s chaos, and noted the ease with which protesters entered the Green Zone despite tight security. There were numerous reports that security forces had allowed the protesters in as part of a deal with Mr. Sadr and his militia. The prime minister’s office denied news reports on Saturday that Mr. Abadi had ordered forces to accommodate the protesters. “I believe Abadi allowed them to enter,” Mr. Jibouri said. “This is a mysterious scenario aimed at putting pressure on the political blocs. ” The political crisis has diverted attention from the fight against the Islamic State. The United States has lately stepped up its military support to Iraq, and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. made a surprise visit to Baghdad on Thursday to show support to Mr. Abadi. Even as the attention on Sunday remained on the situation in Baghdad, the Islamic State carried out two devastating suicide bombings in the southern Iraqi city of Samawa. The attacks killed at least 37 people and wounded nearly 90, according to police officials and the provincial governor’s office. Also on Sunday, the United Nations released monthly casualty statistics, reporting that 741 Iraqis were killed in terrorist acts and in fighting against the Islamic State in April. The figures were a decline from March, when 1, 119 Iraqis were killed, but the United Nations office in Baghdad said difficulties in compiling the data suggested that the April totals were the “absolute minimum. ”

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Клоунада — не напасть, как бы клоунам не пропасть!

Клоунада — не напасть, как бы клоунам не пропасть! 31 октября 2016 Происшествия В Германии, где только в октябре было 370 случаев нападений «клоунов» на жителей, не собираются оставлять этих пранкеров безнаказанными. Подражатели идиотским действиям американских ряженых с бейсбольными битами и бензопилами нашли в Англии благодатную почву. Но ни одного любителя подобной клоунады там не наказали, сочтя их нападения на людей всего лишь невинными шуточками. Однако «тонкий» британский юмор доступен не всем. Вряд ли подобные выходки понравились бы и российским туристам, отправлявшимся этой осенью в туманный Альбион. Посему их всех предупреждали быть осторожными и не бродить по Лондону тёмными вечерами. На европейском континенте эта зараза появилась чуть позже и начала распространяться со скоростью, присущей разве что пресловутому свиному или птичьему гриппу. Но не тут-то было! Законопослушные немцы завалили полицию сообщениями об инцидентах, часть которых, как это бывает повсюду, оказалась ложной. Но лишь часть – в основном, переодетые клоунами шутники пугали прохожих и преследовали их с бейсбольными битами. Были настоящие атаки с ножами и другим оружием. Кое-кто даже пострадал, а некоторые жертвы вполне успешно отбивались, вступая с «клоунами» в драку или опрыскивая их из перцовых баллончиков. Само собой, немецкая полиция не собирается потакать нарушителям спокойствия и призывает всех пострадавших обращаться с жалобами. А что у нас? Миновала ли эта напасть российские города? Ага, как же! И у нас нашлись подобные любители поприкалываться. Один «клоун с вантузом» чего стоит! Только его удалой выход на проезжую часть питерского района Купчино закончился абсолютно бесславно: водитель, коего этот тип в маске собирался напугать, вышел из машины, да так ему наподдал, что тот отлетел на обочину. В преддверии Хэллоуина и в наших магазинах раскупили все клоунские наряды. Российской полиции, как всегда, не до хулиганских происшествий, и заниматься их предотвращением вызвались… не подумайте, что у нас активизировались «дружинники». Патрулировать улицы собираются конные казаки — тут уж «клоунам» будет не до шуток! Источник информации и картинки: t-online.de Теги:

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Factbox: Trump fills top jobs for his administration

(Reuters) - President-elect Donald Trump will nominate Republican U.S. Representative Mick Mulvaney to be director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, a senior transition official said on Friday. The following is a list of Republican Trump’s selections for top jobs in his administration; all the posts but those of national security adviser, the White House chief of staff, White House director of the National Economic Council and White House strategist require Senate confirmation: Sessions, 69, was the first U.S. senator to endorse Trump’s presidential bid and has been a close ally since. Son of a country store owner, the Alabama senator and former federal prosecutor has long taken a tough stance on illegal immigration, opposing any path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. U.S. Representative Pompeo, 52, is a third-term congressman from Kansas who serves on the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, which oversees the CIA, National Security Agency and cyber security. A retired Army officer and Harvard Law School graduate, Pompeo supports the U.S. government’s sweeping collection of Americans’ communications data and wants to scrap the nuclear deal with Iran. Ross, 79, heads the private equity firm W.L. Ross & Co. His net worth was pegged by Forbes at about $2.9 billion. A staunch supporter of Trump and an economic adviser, Ross helped shape the Trump campaign’s views on trade policy. He blames the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, which went into force in 1994, and the 2001 entry of China into the World Trade Organization, for causing massive U.S. factory job losses. Mattis is a retired Marine general known for his tough talk, distrust of Iran and battlefield experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. A former leader of Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East and South Asia, Mattis, 66, is known by many U.S. forces by his nickname “Mad Dog.” He was once rebuked for saying in 2005: “It’s fun to shoot some people.” DeVos, 58, is a billionaire Republican donor, a former chair of the Michigan Republican Party and an advocate for the privatization of education. As chair of the American Federation for Children, she has pushed at the state level for vouchers that families can use to send their children to private schools and for the expansion of charter schools. Perry, 66, adds to the list of oil drilling advocates skeptical about climate change who have been picked for senior positions in Trump’s Cabinet. The selections have worried environmentalists but cheered an oil and gas industry eager for expansion. Perry, who also briefly ran in the 2016 presidential race, would have to be confirmed by the Senate to head the Energy Department, which is responsible for U.S. energy policy and oversees the nation’s nuclear weapons program. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY ADMINISTRATOR: SCOTT PRUITT An ardent opponent of President Barack Obama’s measures to stem climate change, Oklahoma Attorney General Pruitt, 48, has enraged environmental activists. But he fits with the president-elect’s promise to cut the agency back and eliminate regulation that he says is stifling oil and gas drilling. Pruitt became the top state prosecutor for Oklahoma, which has extensive oil reserves, in 2011, and has challenged the EPA multiple times since. U.S. Representative Price, 62, is an orthopedic surgeon who heads the House Budget Committee. A representative from Georgia since 2005, Price has criticized Obamacare and has championed a plan of tax credits, expanded health savings accounts and lawsuit reforms to replace it. He is opposed to abortion. The final leadership role of Kelly’s 45-year career was head of the U.S. Southern Command, responsible for U.S. military activities and relationships in Latin America and the Caribbean. The 66-year-old retired Marine general differed with Obama on key issues and has warned of vulnerabilities along the United States’ southern border with Mexico. Carson, 65, is a retired neurosurgeon who dropped out of the Republican presidential nominating race in March and threw his support to Trump. A popular writer and speaker in conservative circles, Carson previously indicated reluctance to take a position in the incoming administration because of his lack of experience in the federal government. Carson is the first African-American picked for a Cabinet spot by Trump. Zinke, 55, a first-term Republican representative and a member of the House subcommittee on natural resources, has voted for legislation that would weaken environmental safeguards on public lands. He has taken stances favoring coal, a fossil fuel that suffered during the Obama administration. The League of Conservation Voters, which ranks lawmakers on their environmental record, gave Zinke an extremely low lifetime score of 3 percent. Puzder, chief executive officer of CKE Restaurants Inc, which runs the Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s fast-food chains, has been a vociferous critic of government regulation of the workplace and the National Labor Relations Board. Puzder, 66, has argued that higher minimum wages would hurt workers by forcing restaurants to close, and praises the benefits of automation, so his appointment is likely to antagonize organized labor. Cohn, 56, president and chief operating officer of investment bank Goldman Sachs, had widely been considered heir apparent to Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of the Wall Street firm. Trump hammered Goldman and Blankfein during the presidential campaign, releasing a television ad that called Blankfein part of a “global power structure” that had robbed America’s working class. Retired Lieutenant General Flynn, 57, was an early Trump supporter and serves as vice chairman on his transition team. He began his Army career in 1981 and was deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq. Flynn became head of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2012 under President Barack Obama but retired a year earlier than expected, according to media reports, and became a fierce critic of Obama’s foreign policy. U.S. Representative Mick Mulvaney, 49, a South Carolina Republican, is a fiscal conservative. He was an outspoken critic of former House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, who resigned in 2015 amid opposition from fellow Republicans who were members of the House Freedom Caucus. Mulvaney was first elected to Congress in 2010. Tillerson, 64, has spent his entire career at Exxon Mobil Corp, where he rose to serve as its chairman and CEO in 2006. A civil engineer by training, the Texan joined the world’s largest energy company in 1975 and led several of its operations in the United States as well as in Yemen, Thailand and Russia. As Exxon’s chief executive, he maintained close ties with Moscow and opposed U.S. sanctions against Russia for its incursion into Crimea. McMahon, 68, is a co-founder and former chief executive of the professional wrestling franchise WWE, which is based in Stamford, Connecticut. She ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for a U.S. Senate seat in Connecticut in 2010 and 2012, and was an early supporter of Trump’s presidential campaign. Chao, 63, was labor secretary under President George W. Bush for eight years and the first Asian-American woman to hold a Cabinet position. She is a director at Ingersoll Rand, News Corp and Vulcan Materials Company. She is married to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky. Mnuchin, 53, is a successful private equity investor, hedge fund manager and Hollywood financier who spent 17 years at Goldman Sachs before leaving in 2002. He assembled an investor group to buy a failed California mortgage lender in 2009, rebranded it as OneWest Bank and built it into Southern California’s largest bank. Housing advocacy groups criticized the bank for its foreclosure practices, accusing it of being too quick to foreclose on struggling homeowners. Haley, 44, has been the Republican governor of South Carolina since 2011 and has little experience in foreign policy or the federal government. The daughter of Indian immigrants, she led a successful push last year to remove the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the South Carolina state capitol after the killing of nine black churchgoers in Charleston by a white gunman. Recently re-elected to serve as Republican National Committee chairman, Priebus will give up his party post to join Trump in the White House, where the low-key Washington operative could help forge ties with Congress to advance Trump’s agenda. The 44-year-old was a steadfast supporter of Trump during the presidential campaign even as the party fractured amid the choice. CHIEF WHITE HOUSE STRATEGIST, SENIOR COUNSELOR: STEVE BANNON The former head of the conservative website Breitbart News came aboard as Trump’s campaign chairman in August. A rabble-rousing conservative media figure, he helped shift Breitbart into a forum for the alt-right, a loose confederation of those who reject mainstream politics and includes neo-Nazis, white supremacists and anti-Semites. His hiring signals Trump’s dedication to operating outside the norms of Washington. As White House chief of staff, Bannon, 63, will serve as Trump’s gatekeeper and agenda-setter.

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BRILLIANT! LT COL TONY SHAFFER: How Trump Should Fight Back Against “Deep State” [Video]

Former CIA analyst and retired U.S. Army Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Tony Shaffer told Lou Dobbs on Tuesday President Trump needs to understand deep state has declared war against his administration. He needs to fire top two levels in intelligence to clean house.THE DEEP STATE:Never in American history has there been a more highly organized group of people, the deep state , attempting to subvert the will of the American people, in this case, the Trump presidency. Peter Schweizer discusses the efforts of the deep state , their conspiracy campaign against Donald Trump and its potential impact on President Trump s administration.

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Angola's opposition loses appeal to annul election result

LUANDA (Reuters) - Angola s Constitutional Court rejected on Wednesday an appeal by the largest opposition party to annul the results of last month s election, which gave a landslide victory to the ruling MPLA party. In a 38 page court document, the Constitutional Court said the evidence presented by The National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) did not prove there were any irregularities or biases in the electoral process. The ruling is final and cannot be appealed. A spokesperson for UNITA said the party did not have any immediate comment. The People s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) won the Aug 23 vote with 61 percent, with UNITA second on 27 percent. UNITA had argued that in multiple provinces the results presented by the National Electoral Commission differed considerably from their own tally, alleging the results were not the product of local vote counting but were instead centrally engineered. The Constitutional Court dismissed this argument, saying the polling station tallies presented by UNITA did not show any bias against the party.

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Iran's Rouhani says Sochi summit 'right step, at right time' for Syria

LONDON (Reuters) - The trilateral meeting between Iran, Russia and Turkey in the Russian resort of Sochi this week was a right step, at the right time for stability in Syria, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad. Russia s Vladimir Putin won the backing of Turkey and Iran on Wednesday to host a Syrian peace congress, taking the central role in a major diplomatic push to finally end a civil war all but won by Assad. Sochi summit was a right step at the right time, Rouhani was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA on Saturday in a phone call with Tehran s main regional ally. He said a national congress to hold face-to-face talks between government and opposition could be a step towards stability and security of Syria. Iran has signed large economic contracts with Syria, reaping what appear to be lucrative rewards for helping Assad in his fight against rebel groups and Islamic State militants. Tehran is ready to have an active role in reconstruction of Syria, Rouhani added. The chief commander of Iran s Revolutionary Guards, who has sent weapons and thousands of soldiers to Syria to prop up Assad s regime, also said on Thursday that their forces were ready to help rebuild Syria and bring about a lasting ceasefire there. Syria s six-year civil war has killed hundreds of thousands of people and forced millions to flee in the worst refugee crisis since World War Two. In a joint statement in Sochi, the three leaders called on the Syrian government and moderate opposition to participate constructively in the planned congress, to be held in the same city on a date they did not specify. Saudi Arabia, Iran s arch rival in the Middle East, also sponsored a meeting on Wednesday at a luxury hotel in Riyadh for the Syrian opposition groups. Regional tensions have risen in recent weeks between Sunni Muslim monarchy Saudi Arabia and Shi ite Iran. Saudi Crown Prince called the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei the new Hitler of the Middle East in an interview with the New York Times published on Thursday. Israel also views Iran as the main threat in the region, and a cabinet minister said this month Israel has had covert contacts with Saudi Arabia. It is very odd that a regional country considers Iranian nation as its enemy and the Zionist regime as its friend, Rouhani told Assad in the call. The next round of U.N.-backed peace talks in Geneva aimed at ending the Syrian civil war will begin on Nov. 28.

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Comey CONFIRMS FBI Investigation Into Trump’s Collusion With Russia During Election (VIDEO)

FBI Director James Comey has confirmed that the agency is not only investigating Russia s interference in the 2016 presidential election but is also taking a long hard look at whether Donald Trump and his campaign colluded with the foreign power.In his opening statement, Comey said that the FBI doesn t usually confirm the existence of ongoing investigations, However, if there are unusual circumstances where it is in the public interest, that can change. The bureau may, at these times, find it necessary to break with this policy, Comey explained. This is one of those circumstances, he said. I have been authorized by the Department of Justice to confirm that the FBI, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. And that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia s efforts, Comey said.He added that the investigation would also include an assessment of whether any crimes were committed. The most concerning part of Comey s statement came when he said that the investigation was initiated in July of 2016. July. Think about that. Somehow, even though the FBI was investigating Russia s interference in the election on Trump s behalf and whether or not Trump was actually working with Russia, we still ended up with this man sitting in the White House. Let that sink in for a minute.FBI Dir. Comey: FBI is investigating Russian meddling in election, including whether there was any coordination between Trump team, Russia pic.twitter.com/pf8xZyXQYD ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) March 20, 2017Featured image via video screen capture

1real

Employees Say FACEBOOK IS SUPPRESSING CONSERVATIVE NEWS…Pushing Black Lives Matter…Artificially Ordering “Trending News”

We know firsthand what it feels like to be a victim of Facebook. Four years ago, we started making a lot of noise about the illegal immigrants crossing our borders. The number of people interacting with our page went from 32 MILLION to 3 million during within a year. The number of likes on our page had almost doubled, but the activity levels on our Facebook page had dropped over 90%. We hadn t changed a thing that we were doing during that one year span, we were just no longer showing up in the Facebook newsfeed. We still struggle with the same issue today. Even though we pay to advertise on Facebook, we only show up in the newsfeed between 2-6 times per week. Even after our readers have checked the box to see our stories first in their newsfeed on Facebook, they complain we are never there and that they have to physically visit our page in order to see what we re posting. Hmmm On Feb 8, 2013, Breitbart News did a story about Facebook unfairly suspending one of the two mom administrator s on our page:Anonymous sources at Facebook s news team have confirmed to Gizmodo that, in addition to suppressing conservative news sources, the company suppresses stories about itself while artificially promoting stories about the Black Lives Matter movement.This is the latest in the story of Facebook s politically biased trending section, which we initially reported on last week. The anonymous source told Gizmodo that stories from conservative news sources like Breitbart were regularly suppressed by the company.New details emerged today, with the anonymous employee revealing to Gizmodo that stories about Mitt Romney, Rand Paul, CPAC, and other conservative topics were prevented from reaching Facebook s trending category. Furthermore, stories about progressive movements like Black Lives Matter were artificially promoted by the company.According to Gizmodo, the source kept a list of stories that were deep sixed, or prevented from trending on Facebook. They include a laundry list of topics of interest to conservatives.Among the deep-sixed or suppressed topics on the list: former IRS official Lois Lerner, who was accused by Republicans of inappropriately scrutinizing conservative groups; Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker; popular conservative news aggregator the Drudge Report; Chris Kyle, the former Navy SEAL who was murdered in 2013; and former Fox News contributor Steven Crowder.Gizmodo explains that, far from reflecting the interests of the social network s users, the site s trending list instead reflects the biases of its news team.In other words, Facebook s news section operates like a traditional newsroom, reflecting the biases of its workers and the institutional imperatives of the corporation. Imposing human editorial values onto the lists of topics an algorithm spits out is by no means a bad thing but it is in stark contrast to the company s claims that the trending module simply lists topics that have recently become popular on Facebook. In other words, Facebook s role in the dissemination of news is beginning to resemble that of the Old Media gatekeepers the company initially claimed to be disrupting. Like MSNBC or CNN, Facebook is going to feed its users information from the top down, mediated by its employees own political prejudices just as I predicted it would last month.In addition to suppressing stories, Gizmodo s sources also confirmed that they were also directed to inject certain stories into the trending list even if they weren t popular enough to warrant inclusion. Unsurprisingly, these included stories about Black Lives Matter, a movement that Mark Zuckerberg has personally defended from internal critics at the company.Facebook got a lot of pressure about not having a trending topic for Black Lives Matter, the individual said. They realized it was a problem, and they boosted it in the ordering. They gave it preference over other topics. When we injected it, everyone started saying, Yeah, now I m seeing it as number one . This particular injection is especially noteworthy because the #BlackLivesMatter movement originated on Facebook, and the ensuing media coverage of the movement often noted its powerful social media presence.The company also instructs its curators to avoid promoting stories about Facebook itself a useful barrier against articles that could make the company look bad. When it was a story about the company, we were told not to touch it, said one former curator. It had to be cleared through several channels, even if it was being shared quite a bit. We were told that we should not be putting it on the trending tool. Something tells me this article won t be appearing on Facebook s trending list anytime soon.Despite Facebook curators actively suppressing articles from Breitbart News, it is still the 15th largest publisher in the world for Facebook engagement, #12 in the world for Facebook shares of its stories, and #10 in the world for Facebook comments. It begs the question how much bigger Breitbart News reach would be if Facebook employees were not intentionally holding back Breitbart s exposure on the social media platform.Breitbart News issued an official statement in reaction to these latest revelations:Breitbart News has remained in the top 25 Facebook publishers for six months in a row, despite the new reports confirming what conservatives have long suspected: Facebook s trending news artificially mutes conservatives and amplifies progressives.Facebook claims its algorithm simply populates topics that have recently become popular on Facebook in its trending news section, but now we know that s not true.In a spirit of transparency and community, we invite Mark Zuckerberg to do a Facebook Live interview with Breitbart News Tech Editor Milo Yiannopoulos to explain to the tens of millions of conservatives on Facebook why they re being discriminated against.Breitbart Tech has long warned that despite their outward commitments to political neutrality, hyper-progressive Silicon Valley companies like Facebook would inevitably imprint their own biases on the flow of information. It seems those warnings were not amiss.Via: Breitbart News

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GOP Billionaire Issues HARSH Message To Congress: Impeach Or I’m Done

A billionaire GOP donor is fed up with Donald Trump and he s fed up with Republicans in Congress who refuse to do anything about Trump. Now he has a very strongly worded message for Congress he wants them to do something about the monster in the White House or he ll stop writing them checks. In fact, it might be too late.Florida Cuban-American billionaire Mike Fernandez is disgusted by Trump and in an interview posted on Thursday by Politico, he expressed (shall we say) frustration at Republicans who balls to impeach Trump. All the Republicans who hide behind the flag and hide behind the church, they don t have the f balls to do what it takes, Fernandez told POLITICO Florida in a telephone interview on Thursday.Fernandez has long been a huge supporter of Republicans, especially at the state level in Florida. He supported Mitt Romney, Florida Governor Rick Scott, Jeb Bush and several others, but he s no longer a Republican because of Trump. In 2016, he spent $3.5 million in an effort to defeat Trump. I am out of the political process. Too disgusted, too expensive, too supportive of ego maniacs whose words have the value of quicksand, he wrote in an email to a Republican fundraiser seeking political contributions. It is demoralizing to me to see adults worshipping a false idol. I can t continue to write checks for anyone, he said. I know what it s like to lose a country. It gets worse. Fernandez called Trump one of the worst words in the English language for forced-birth Republicans. He called Trump an abortion of a human being. If I was the doctor and knew what that baby would do, I d have made sure it never would have seen the light of day, he said of the president.The most interesting thing about all of this is that this might be what it takes for Republicans to wake up. Face it, they aren t going to grow a set of balls (to paraphrase Fernandez) any time in the near future, but they will be terrified of losing their donor base.Billionaires, more than anyone, care about how our country is perceived on the world stage. Chaos means market uncertainty, which is never a good thing for the moneyed class. If Trump continues down his current path, he will soon start losing the confidence of the GOP donor base. If Congress doesn t do something about him, look for all of the Trump sycophant members of Congress to be primaried, by the people who have all the money.Featured image via Alex Wong/Getty Images

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IS THIS THE MOMENT THAT TRUMP DECIDED TO RUN FOR PRESIDENT? WATCH TRUMP As Cruel Jokes Are Made About A Possible Trump Presidency [Video]

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Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton Win Easily in New York Primary - The New York Times

Donald J. Trump wrested back control of the Republican presidential race on Tuesday with a commanding victory in the New York primary, while Hillary Clinton dealt a severe blow to Senator Bernie Sanders with an unexpectedly strong win that led her to declare that the Democratic nomination was “in sight. ” The Mr. Trump was poised to take most of the 95 Republican delegates at stake, substantially adding to his current lead over Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and significantly improving his chances of winning the Republican nomination. Mr. Cruz came away with no delegates, a major setback, while Gov. John Kasich of Ohio had a shot at picking up some in Manhattan and the capital region. Mrs. Clinton’s decisive victory ended a string of wins by Mr. Sanders and gave her more delegates than her advisers expected. Her base of support was Long Island, the five boroughs, and upstate cities, with female and black and Hispanic voters turning out for her in especially strong numbers. The two hometown winners beamed throughout their victory speeches, but it was Mr. Trump who particularly seemed like a different candidate. As he spoke in the lobby of Trump Tower, there were no freewheeling presentations of steaks and bottled water, as in the past. There was no reference to “Lyin’ Ted” or “Crooked Hillary” he called his opponent “Senator Cruz” instead, and made no mention of Mrs. Clinton. He also took no questions from the news media. And his speech sounded more presidential than any other he has given on an election night — a focused, tightened message about trade and the economy as he prepares to campaign in states hit hard by manufacturing industry losses. The speech reflected the growing influence of Paul Manafort, whom Mr. Trump empowered to help him win the nomination and who has taken on a greater purview, including messaging. “Our jobs are being sucked out of our states,” Mr. Trump said. “One of the big problems is economy and jobs, and that is my wheelhouse. ” He said, twice, that he was going to get up and go back to work for the nomination on Wednesday morning, a clear message about the intensity he is bringing to the fight. In the Democratic race, Mrs. Clinton was set to win roughly 30 more delegates than Mr. Sanders, out of 247 at stake. She already had a lead of more than 200 delegates in the race. Smiling broadly throughout her victory speech, Mrs. Clinton drew cheers as she thanked her adopted home state and then boomed, “Today, you proved once again, there’s no place like home. ” “The race for the Democratic nomination is in the home stretch and victory is in sight,” Mrs. Clinton added, reflecting the overwhelming mathematical advantage she has in delegates. Sanders advisers had said that beating Mrs. Clinton in her adopted home state represented one of their campaign’s best opportunities to damage her candidacy and sow doubts about her strength as a nominee. On Tuesday, however, Mrs. Clinton drew deep support among women and blacks — two groups that have been essential for her in many states — while Mr. Sanders was outpacing her among white men and people under 45, according to exit polls. “Bernie Sanders got very negative attacking Hillary Clinton and dividing the party in New York, and I think he now has to ask himself if he wants to keep going down that path,” said Jay Jacobs, a Clinton supporter who is the Democratic chairman in Nassau County on Long Island. “After New York, we’re moving into a phase of the campaign where we have to start uniting the party. ” Mr. Sanders and his team spent Tuesday looking past New York. Mr. Sanders held a rally at Pennsylvania State University in State College on Tuesday night, then flew home to Burlington, Vt. and spoke to reporters just after the race was called. “There are five primaries next week and we think we are going to do well and we think we have a path toward victory,” Mr. Sanders said. He also expressed concern about the closed primary system in New York and said he hoped it would change in the future. “Some three million New Yorkers were unable to vote today because they were registered as independents,” Mr. Sanders said. “That makes no sense to me. ” The Sanders campaign spent roughly $2 million more than the Clinton campaign on television ads in New York. The magnitude of the loss — both in the popular vote and in delegates — was steep for Mr. Sanders, who said he intended to get “recharged and take a day off. ” The senator’s advisers were optimistic that he would perform strongly in next Tuesday’s primaries in Pennsylvania as well as in Rhode Island and Connecticut. The other two states voting next week, Delaware and Maryland, are widely seen as Clinton strongholds. The Sanders campaign is already running television ads in those five states and Indiana, which votes May 3. “Bernie is in good shape going forward no matter who wins New York,” said Tad Devine, a senior adviser on the Sanders campaign. “We could win enough delegates in Pennsylvania and Indiana to catch up further to her, and we have good opportunities all the way through California,” which votes June 7. Still, Mr. Devine acknowledged, “we’re going to have to have some big wins at the end” of the primary and caucus season. Mrs. Clinton, a former senator from New York, received support from roughly six in 10 Democrats on Long Island, and she overwhelmed Mr. Sanders in Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx. Mr. Sanders won many upstate rural counties, where few votes were cast, and he also did well in the Hudson Valley, given the enclaves of liberals and college students. On a major issue in their campaign, nearly of Democratic primary voters said that Wall Street does more to hurt the American economy than to help it, and a majority of those voters backed Mr. Sanders. But Mrs. Clinton received even stronger support from those who said Wall Street helps the economy. By a slim margin, Republican primary voters also said that Wall Street does more to hurt the economy than help it. Within the Trump campaign on Tuesday night, euphoria mixed with eagerness to move onto a number of states that are likely to be friendly to Mr. Trump. There have been other pivotal points in the Trump campaign, moments when he was described as becoming newly serious. It never stuck with the famously candidate. But Mr. Manafort is someone whom Mr. Trump views as something of a peer. No matter the margin of victory, New York Republicans gave Mr. Trump a restorative psychic boost after weeks when Mr. Cruz scored a big victory in the Wisconsin primary and outmaneuvered the Trump campaign in Colorado, Wyoming and elsewhere in winning and electing delegates backing his candidacy. Mr. Trump now has clear momentum heading into the next week’s primaries — so much so that he evinced fresh optimism on Tuesday about ultimately getting to the 1, 237 delegates needed to capture the nomination. “I think I’ll get there,” Mr. Trump said in an interview before the polls closed. New York has not been home to leading presidential candidates in both parties since the 1944 campaigns of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Thomas E. Dewey, so the voting by Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump merited unusual news media coverage on Tuesday morning. As a light mist fell, Mrs. Clinton and former President Bill Clinton cast their votes at an elementary school in their adopted town of Chappaqua. As news photographers and cameramen kept encroaching on her while she tried to vote, Mrs. Clinton finally shooed them away. “Guys, it’s a private ballot,” she said. The Democratic vote was marred by major irregularities at polling places across Brooklyn. The city comptroller’s office announced that the Board of Elections had confirmed that more than 125, 000 Democratic voters in Brooklyn were dropped between November and this month, while about 63, 000 were added — a net loss that was not explained. Mayor Bill de Blasio described “the purging of entire buildings and blocks of voters,” while the comptroller, Scott Stringer, said his office would audit the Board of Elections. Mr. Trump voted for himself midmorning in New York City, which he called “a great honor” as he entered his apartment building. In the interview later, Mr. Trump described the experience of seeing his name on the ballot, saying he was moved by the enormity of what it means. “It does sort of hit you,” he said. Mr. Trump won majorities in all regions except for rural upstate areas. Some Republicans questioned why Mr. Cruz spent so little time in upstate New York, where Mr. Trump’s support two weeks ago was softer than it appeared. Instead, Mr. Cruz devoted his time mostly to the city and to fundraising. The primary was a seminal moment for Mr. Trump, both tactically in terms of delegates needed to clinch the nomination, and mentally, as he tries to right the ship after a rough couple of weeks that prompted him to reshuffle his small team of advisers, adding the seasoned campaign hand, Mr. Manafort. The coming weeks will test whether Mr. Trump can temper his message and his style for a new phase of the race, one where running a traditional campaign matters more than his ability to rally crowds. Indeed, Mr. Trump’s tone throughout the day was focused on what he repeatedly called, in interviews, a “corrupt” and “rigged” nominating process. Alfonse M. D’Amato, the former United States senator and a backer of Mr. Kasich, said the New York results would be critical for Mr. Trump to rebound in his fight with Mr. Cruz. “This will give him momentum that he needs after his setbacks,” Mr. D’Amato said.

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Solar Panels In The UK Surpass Coal-Powered Electricity

Solar Panels In The UK Surpass Coal-Powered Electricity Nov 16, 2016 1 0 According to research from Carbon Brief , electricity coming from solar panels in the UK surpassed the amount that came from coal-power. The solar panels across the UK generated about 7,000 gigawatt hours of electricity between April and September, while coal produced about 6,300 gigawatt hours. Solar power continues to trend positively. According to James Court, who is the head of the Renewable Energy Association , this is an incredible accomplishment: “Solar overtaking coal this summer would have been largely unthinkable five years ago.” However, now that winter is approaching, coal will take over again in production as there is a greater need for more heating and lighting through the cold months. Juliet Davenport, who is the CEO of Good Energy , recently said : “When I started my company 15 years ago, you could fit the whole UK renewable energy industry into a small room, and now nearly 25% of the UK’s power comes from renewables. As clean technology advances, Britain is bidding fair-well to coal. The transition to a 100% renewable future is within Britain’s grasp.” This is a great step forward and another sign of the times we are living in. It is becoming cheaper to use solar every year that passes. In fact, according to the Renewable Energy Institute , the cost of solar energy will be cheaper than fossil fuel energy by 2025, with it decreasing every year until that point. “The answer rises every morning.” In another sign of the continuing trend towards clean and renewable energy, it has been reported by the U.S. Energy Information Administration that U.S. oil companies last year lost $67 billion, at a time when oil prices took a major dive. On the opposite end of that spectrum, Elon Musk’s Tesla company made $22 million in the first quarter of this year . Again, we see the trend moving towards clean energy. Throughout the eastern hemisphere of the world, there is another large sign that renewable energy is here to stay and is advancing quickly. In September of this year, leaders from China, Russia, Japan and South Korea met to sign an agreement to begin building what is known as the Asian Super-Grid . The grid is set to become the world’s largest collaboration of sustainable, renewable and clean energy, which will provide energy to the four countries involved, as well as throughout Southern Africa, Europe and Southeast Asia. How soon do you think the world will be running off of entirely renewable energy? What will be the obstacles? What are the current obstacles? What other renewables exist outside of solar, wind, wave and geothermal that excite you? What other stories are out there that are yet more proof that the world is moving in a positive direction with it’s energy usage? Lance Schuttler graduated from the University of Iowa with a degree in Health Science and does health coaching through his website Orgonlight Health . You can follow the Orgonlight Health facebook page or visit the website for more information and other inspiring articles.

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Halloween Pumpkin Carving Scenes at the Hospital | GomerBlog

Tweet What do you get when you have medical professionals with a warped sense of humor, who are stuck at work at the hospital on or around Halloween? Crazy pumpkin carving medical scenes! We found some great ones on the internet and KNOW that you guys have more out there to share. Share your best medical pumpkin carving scenes on our facebook post and we will select a winner of our contest on Halloween night. The winner will get a free GomerBlog flask! Enjoy and good luck!

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Head of Hillary Transition Project: "Israel is Depressing"

Head of Hillary Transition Project: "Israel is Depressing" November 1, 2016 Daniel Greenfield Hillary's people really don't like Israel. This email, like many of the recent leaks, stars Neera Tanden. Tanden heads the Hillary-Kaine Transition Project. The email exchange was with John Podesta, head of the Hillary campaign. On Mar 17, 2015 11:13 PM, "Neera Tanden" < [email protected] > wrote: > Israel is depressing >>>> It's a good lesson that the wing nuts are just ruthless in every country. > John Podesta replied, "Bad"

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WWN’s Horoscopes

Your workday goes into extra time, and you lose on penalties. taurus 21 April – 21 May You realise you’ve never read a book that didn’t have ‘now a major motion picture’ on the cover. gemini May 21 – June 20 You didn’t think that ‘vomit head’ would stick as a nickname when they started calling you it 30 years ago, but here you are. cancer June 21 – July 22 You realise that you weren’t the fastest sperm, you were just the only one that could be bothered. leo Take two, they’re small. virgo August 23 – September 22 You don’t think Trump’s victory is all that bad, to be honest. You also shit yourself on a regular basis. libra Did you know screaming into the wind burns 990 calories an hour? Keep it up! scorpio October 23 – November 21 The bloody media sneak round your house late at night and mess the place up. You just tidied! sagittarius You mark all your emails as read, even if you haven’t looked at them. capricorn You stop wearing your FitBit because it keeps catching on the Pringles tin. aquarius January 20 – February 18 You make the argument that the US Jeremy Kyle show isn’t as good as the UK version. pisces February 19 – March 20 Dem bones dem bones need calcium, not alcohol! Drink milk instead of beer at least once a week.

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Grey’s Anatomy Star Makes Hilarious Observation Of Trump’s Life Choices, And It’s Perfect (TWEET)

Sometimes you just have to point the obvious out, because a lot of people just don t see the error in their own ways. This is exactly what Grey s Anatomy star and activist Jesse Williams did when he took to Twitter to point out what an ass Donald Trump is truly behaving like.Trump tweeted out: Just released that international gangs are all over our cities. This will end when I am President! Now, terrible grammar aside, this is an absolute ridiculous statement. First of all, wtf? He s just trying to incite fear and hatred, once again of the other. Secondly, Trump is coming across like he s Batman out to save the day completely ignoring how to actually get something done.Noticing this buffoonery, Williams tweeted out in response to Trump s ridiculous tweet: You literally could ve been anything and you chose to go down in history as a preposterously oafish laughing stock. via TwitterQuite honestly, it doesn t get much more perfect than that. Trump time and time again says the most ridiculous things that hold no basis in reality, and uses Twitter as his own personal troll fest to be as big of an asshole as possible. His followers eat it up, but to those of us who clearly have a grasp on common sense and reality, Trump is turning himself into one of the biggest embarrassments of all time.Trump was born in to massive wealth, and like Williams said, the Republican front-runner could have been anything in the world he wanted to be. Hell, he could have just sat on his fortune, made a few investments and lived his life in peace. But instead, he chose to go down as a preposterously oafish laughing stock, who at this point, will never ever recover.Trump, we get that you re a narcissist, but to actually believe that you can handle being the leader of the free world? Nah, you re absolutely out of your disheveled head.Featured Photo by Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images Twitter

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THE VISION THING ‘16 : Information

The Vision Thing By Paul Edwards That this election is an abysmal disgrace is nationally acknowledged; that it is absolutely unique is not, although it’s undeniable. Never before has virtually the entire mainstream media avidly, emphatically endorsed one Presidential candidate while furiously, contemptuously vilifying the other. Never has a sitting President joined in general denunciation of a candidate. With ten days to go it’s affirmed by most key sources that Donald Trump can’t win and Hillary Clinton will. Many pundits predict a landslide for her. Assume it. What then? The most hated President-elect ever will not be loved by the Congress she will confront. Even with a majority in the Senate--just possible--and in the House--not--prospects for a legislative agenda, should she have one, are non-existent. What Obama’s phony charm failed to achieve, Hillary’s lack of it will scarcely obtain. This presages four more years of stasis and nullity, of social and economic rot, financial chicanery, and national decay. As regards the composition of the Supreme Court--the panicky Liberal pitch for being “with her”--unless she nominates hidebound conservatives, which is probable, not a single selection will be confirmed during her term. So... paralysis in Congress, reaction in the Court; two limbs of government neutralized, gives us rule by a disliked, distrusted figurehead with the full power of Wall Street and the Imperial War-loving Establishment behind her. What then will be accomplished? First, the interests of The Empire will be promoted at least as robustly as in Obama’s eight years of sycophancy. Including his Rube Goldbergian Obamacare, still foundering and gouging, nothing of any benefit to Americans was achieved under this charlatan who perfected the skill of describing an airplane crash as a triumph of gravity. So what will she do in office? Well, start with what she won’t do. She won’t make any effort to restrain The Big Casino, the Gold Sacks Mafia. They made her an offer she couldn’t refuse. She won’t attempt any closing of the inequality gap. That would entail clipping her base--”Our Crowd” of the Hamptons, Palm Beach and Beverly Hills. She won’t meddle with Sick Care--”fool me once...”--or, corporate tax enforcement. Her Big Donors don’t want to pay them and why should they, right? She can just let Labor die of its own raging leukemia. College grads have to stay in their parents’ basements and service their college debt via Macdonalds because Arbeit Macht Frei. No need to do anything about Global Warming so long as you denounce it boldly at international meetings. Best leave the environment in the hands of those who can turn idle nature into money. Besides, the solution to pollution is dilution and clearcuts grow back in a millenium or so. On the minor agenda, she knows there are still small poor countries who require our R2P and cluster bombs. Others have resources that, with the odd military coup or assassination, should come on line nicely. Africa, say, has low-hanging fruit, and the Latin American mess needs our firm hand to prevent Lefty dictators diverting perfectly good profits to their own societies. Turning to the major crises, Exceptionalism requires that they be made far bigger. Our Defense Industries can’t be expected to muck along forever on paltry brushfire wars: Iraq, Afghanistan--though in fairness they’ve profuced steady income streams--and Libya, no bonanza, and Syria, which Putin’s diabolical meddling prevented blossoming as we hoped. Still, there’s no earthly reason we can’t achieve a profitable Third World War simply by refusing to take the bait of Satanic Putin’s wimpy peace offers and calling them what they really are: a mortal threat to our Capitalist System. So much for her first Hundred Days. Beyond the panicked cheerleading of the Imperial Elite--those that the late, great George Carlin referred to as “your owners”--and their failing organs of crowd manipulation, and beyond the day Clinton takes office if their hopes are consummated, America faces a cataclysmic crisis of governance; one of the order of magnitude of the secession of The South under Lincoln. Clinton and Trump are the physical, mental and emotional symptoms of that crisis. Our dead system must, and will, have catharsis. Which of them precipitates it may not greatly matter. Or it may mean everything. As Brutus said at Philippi: “Oh, that a man might know the end of this days business ere it come; but it sufficeth that the day will end and then the end is known.” Paul Edwards is a writer and film-maker in Montana. He can be reached at: hgmnude@bresnan.net

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Poll: Obama popularity on the upswing

President Barack Obama's popularity with the public is on the upswing, according to a new Gallup poll that found him enjoying his strongest approval rating in nearly two years. That breaks down predictably along party lines, with 90% of Democrats viewing him favorably while only 13% of Republicans say the same. The overall boost in popularity seems to be driven in part by a steady improvement in his standing with independents — he's now seen favorably by 52% of independents, up 6 percentage points since April and 17 percentage points since last fall. That's when Obama was suffering from the lowest popularity his tenure, with only 37% of Americans viewing him favorably last fall. But the 53% of Americans that view him favorably don't all approve of his job performance, which typically lags a few points behind a president's personal popularity. Gallup's daily tracking poll found him still underwater with voters in terms of his job performance, with 43% approving while 51% disapprove of the job he's doing in office. Still, that, too marks a favorable upswing from last fall, when Obama was also facing some of the lowest approval ratings of his time in office. Gallup surveyed 1,024 adults from May 6-10 via landline and cell phone, and the poll has a margin of error of 4%.

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Reading Between the Lines for Gorsuch’s Views on Abortion - The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Some of the current members of the Supreme Court had written books before they were nominated. Remember “Civil Procedure in Sweden,” by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg? Or “Regulation and Its Reform,” by Justice Stephen G. Breyer? Perhaps not. But a book by Judge Neil M. Gorsuch, President Trump’s pick for the Supreme Court, may make a more lasting impression. It is called “The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia,” and it opens a window into Judge Gorsuch’s thinking not only on those topics, which are interesting enough, but also on the relationship between them and abortion. The book, published in 2006, is ambitious, learned, balanced and unusually lucid, at ease in philosophy, law and empirical research. It discusses the Supreme Court’s abortion jurisprudence in detail, but Judge Gorsuch’s goal was not to critique those cases. He asked, rather, whether a constitutional right to abortion necessarily implies a right to assisted suicide and euthanasia. Sure, there are general statements about the value of human life, drawn from what Judge Gorsuch called “secular moral theory. ” “Human life is fundamentally and inherently valuable,” he wrote, adding that “the intentional taking of human life by private persons is always wrong. ” This led him to support existing laws barring assisted suicide and euthanasia. But that broad statement does not answer the question of whether a fetus is a human life in the sense that Judge Gorsuch meant, or where he stands on Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision establishing a constitutional right to abortion. Asked about the book at his 2006 confirmation hearing, after President George W. Bush nominated him to the federal appeals court in Denver, Judge Gorsuch first said that his personal views did not affect his judicial work. “My writings, just to clarify, have been largely in defense of existing law, that is, they are consistent with the Supreme Court’s decisions in this area and existing law in most places,” he added. “So, I do not think there is actually much tension between my writings and anything that might come before the court. ” That is about right. In the book, Judge Gorsuch argued that bans on assisted suicide and euthanasia should be retained, based partly on his understanding of the limits of the constitutional logic of the Supreme Court’s abortion decisions. His account of Roe v. Wade, for instance, is straightforward. “Under Roe’s express holding,” Judge Gorsuch wrote, “a fetus does not qualify as a person. ” In a footnote, he described a contrary view from a 1986 dissent. Notably, it came from a mentor, Justice Byron R. White, for whom Judge Gorsuch worked as a law clerk in 1993 and 1994. “The right to terminate a pregnancy differs from the right to use contraceptives because the former involves the death of a person while the latter does not,” Judge Gorsuch wrote, describing his old boss’s views. The important point for Judge Gorsuch was that the debate over assisted suicide was different from the one over abortion, as there was no doubt that there was a person involved when suicide was at issue. The task there, he said, was balancing “the interests of those persons who wish to control the timing of their deaths and those vulnerable individuals whose lives may be taken without their consent due to mistake, abuse or pressure in a regime where assisted suicide is legal. ” Judge Gorsuch also worked for Justice Anthony M. Kennedy during his clerkship for Justice White, who had by then retired. As it happened, Judge Gorsuch arrived at the Supreme Court soon after another major abortion decision, Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, issued in 1992. In a carefully hedged statement that avoided reliance on firsthand knowledge, though he doubtless had some, Judge Gorsuch described the atmosphere at the court in the wake of the Casey decision. “Rumors persist,” Judge Gorsuch wrote, “of considerable acrimony among court members during deliberations in Casey, arising perhaps in part because Justice Kennedy reportedly switched his vote after the court’s conference on the case, thereby altering the outcome in the case. ” The Casey decision is generally said to have reaffirmed Roe’s core holding. In the book, Judge Gorsuch argued that the decision should be read narrowly, in an apparent attempt to limit its implications for a right to assisted suicide or euthanasia. He acknowledged that the controlling opinion in Casey — from Justices Kennedy, Sandra Day O’Connor and David H. Souter — contained sweeping language, and he quoted what he called its “mystery of life” passage, which is generally attributed to Justice Kennedy. “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life,” the joint opinion said. But the opinion also relied on a second and narrower ground, saying that respect for precedent — stare decisis, in legal Latin — required the court to follow Roe. Judge Gorsuch argued that the flowery stuff was an aside. “Usually, though not always, only the narrowest rationale is said to control future courts,” he wrote. “Casey may come to be dominantly read as a stare decisis decision — a ruling, in essence, that we must respect the abortion right out of traditional deference to settled law — rather than creating any new, right to ‘define one’s concept of existence,’” Judge Gorsuch wrote. At bottom, then, Judge Gorsuch saw no necessary constitutional connection between a right to abortion and one to assisted suicide or euthanasia. But Justice Antonin Scalia, who died last year and whom Judge Gorsuch hopes to replace, said the questions were related, if only because the Constitution was silent about all of them. “We have now determined,” Justice Scalia said in a 2004 speech, “that liberties exist under the federal Constitution — the right to abortion, the right to homosexual sodomy — which were so little rooted in the traditions of the American people that they were criminal for 200 years. ” He added that his colleagues might be prepared to discover a right to assisted suicide in the Constitution. “We’re not ready to announce that right,” he said, sarcastically. “Check back with us. ”

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NAFTA negotiation round extended by two days: Mexico sources

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The fourth round of talks to renegotiate the North American Free Trade agreement have been prolonged until Oct. 17, two sources in Mexico said on Tuesday, as negotiators gathering in Washington were expected to start tackling difficult issues. The round of talks due to begin on Wednesday is expected to include discussions about including quotas for U.S. content in autos, a major bone of contention for Mexico, Canada and many companies. Previously, the talks were due to end on Oct. 15. The news was first reported by Bloomberg earlier on Tuesday.

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Andy Murray, No. 1 and Newly Knighted, Still Has Room for More - The New York Times

MELBOURNE, Australia — “So Ivan, are you calling Andy ‘Sir’?” Ivan Lendl paused and then laughed, which would surely seem strange to those who know him only as Andy Murray’s coach in the front row of the players’ box. “Definitely not,” Lendl said, chuckling some more before heading off down the crowded main hallway inside Rod Laver Arena at the Australian Open. Clearly, not much has changed in the Murray camp since his remarkable stretch run to the No. 1 ranking and a knighthood in 2016. He is still tough on himself on court and on the changeovers. Still Andy — not Sir Andy — to his peers and mentor in chief, Lendl. Still deadpan and droll with his voice that sounds as if it emanates from a mine shaft. Asked on Monday by the interviewer John Fitzgerald how Murray’s wife, Kim, was handling the transition to Lady Kim, Murray said, “No more swearing during my matches, for anyone who saw that a few years ago. ” He was referring to Kim’s courtside language during his semifinal victory over Tomas Berdych at the 2015 Australian Open. Her tirade did not go unnoticed, and she returned for the final cheekily wearing a shirt that read, “Parental advisory explicit content. ” Presumably, Lady Kim won’t be wearing that sort of thing in the players’ box from here on, either (or at least she wasn’t on Monday). “I haven’t found it distracting really,” Murray said of the knighthood. “I mean, I found out about it four or five weeks ago. Maybe if it happened a day or so, two days before the tournament. But I’ve had enough time to get my head around it. ” Just as he has had plenty of time to prepare himself for the role of No. 1, however long it lasts. I asked him on Monday, after his stuttering (5) victory over Illya Marchenko, if there had been any downside to No. 1, thinking he might bring up extra demands or burdens. “No,” he said. “It’s been great. I think because it’s taken me so long to get there, obviously I want to try to stay there. But also I feel like I’m mature enough now to handle it. Maybe if it happens when you’re very young, you might feel extra pressures. The responsibilities might feel a bit much, but I think because I’m much older and more mature, it’s been good. ” The conventional tennis wisdom is that it is harder to hang on at the top than to reach the top. “I hope not,” Murray said. But for anyone who believes that he now has nowhere to go but down, that is hardly true in Australia. He has reached five singles finals in Melbourne and lost all five. No man has done so well at any Grand Slam tournament without breaking through to win the title. Others have lost five finals in the same major event, including Lendl, who lost five at the United States Open. But he also won three. Bill Johnston lost six finals at the United States Championships, but won the event twice. John Bromwich lost five finals at the Australian Championships in the era, but won the title twice, too. Murray, at 29, is in unfortunately uncharted territory, all the more so because Novak Djokovic ended his own long run of frustration at the French Open last year by finally taking the title after reaching four semifinals and three finals. “Look, it’s still a remarkable record, five Slam finals in Australia, and deep down I think it means an enormous amount to Andy to finally complete the puzzle,” said Roger Rasheed, the Australian who once coached Lleyton Hewitt when Hewitt was chasing the title here without success. But Hewitt reached only one final in Melbourne. Murray is here and has a better winning percentage at the Australian Open than at any other Grand Slam tournament except Wimbledon. “Andy’s been so close,” Rasheed said. “What more does he have to do? Well, it’s not a matter of big changes. It’s just been a matter of points and the moments. ” It’s a matter of the opposition, too. The first of Murray’s Australian Open defeats in the final came against Roger Federer in 2010. The last four came against Djokovic in 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2016. “Andy played Roger in his prime and has been playing Novak in his prime,” Rasheed said. “It’s a handful of points changing the way the match falls. Andy’s showing he’s in his prime now. He just needs to get there and roll the dice again. ” Murray’s timing may still not be quite right. He played a great deal of tennis down the stretch in 2016 and was beaten by Djokovic in a final in Doha, Qatar, to start this season. Freshness just might be a factor down the stretch as well as Djokovic’s eagerness to restore the pecking order. But it does not seem quite right in light of their abilities that Djokovic has six Australian Open titles and Murray has not even one. He broke down in tears after losing to Federer in 2010. He stared vacantly into space after losses to Djokovic and sportingly came up with the right words amid major disappointment. And yet he insisted on Monday that his emotions were not mixed when he thought about this tournament. “Honestly, they’re totally positive,” said Murray, who plays Andrey Rublev in the second round on Wednesday. “I’ve had a lot of tough losses here, for sure. But I love it here. Played some great matches as well, but just haven’t managed to win the final. But, you know, I keep coming back to try. I’ll keep doing that until I’m done, but I still feel like I’ve got a few years left to try and do it. ” He is, by any measure, due for a change of fortune in Melbourne. And if you like your sports with foreshadowing, the only other top tennis player to receive a knighthood was Sir Norman Brookes, the Australian star of the early 20th century. Guess whose name has been given to the trophy awarded to the men’s champion at the Australian Open?

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Regular Milk May Beat Low Fat for Kids - The New York Times

milk may not be the best option for kids, though many experts recommend it to fight obesity for children over 2. Canadian researchers collected height and weight data on 2, 745 healthy children ages 1 to 6 years. They took blood samples, and their parents reported how much skim, 1 percent, 2 percent and whole milk the children drank. After controlling for age, sex, outdoor play and other factors that affect both vitamin D levels and weight, they found that children who drank one cup of whole milk per day had a vitamin D level comparable to that of children who drank 2. 9 cups of 1 percent milk, but their body mass index was lower by 0. 79 points. The higher the fat content of the milk they drank, the lower the children’s B. M. I. and the higher their vitamin D levels. The study is in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Why this happens is unknown, but the senior author, Dr. Jonathon L. Maguire, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Toronto, suggested that vitamin D is better absorbed with fat, and drinking milk may leave a child hungrier for more food. “These two things together may make it a double whammy for milk,” he said. “But this is a small piece of the puzzle. We really need to do the research to answer these very basic questions. ”

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Exclusive: Faulty devices help keep Iran in nuclear deal limits - report

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Frequent breakdowns of advanced uranium enrichment devices have inadvertently helped Iran comply with restrictions in the international agreement curbing its nuclear program, according to a new report by a Washington-based think tank. Iranian compliance also is due to tougher policing by U.S. President Donald Trump s administration of the 2015 pact to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons, the Institute for Science and International Security said in a report due on Friday. A copy of the report was seen by Reuters. Iran can be expected to continue to push the deal s limits, commit violations and seek interpretations that are unfounded, the report said. One should expect many struggles to keep Iran within the nuclear limits for the duration of the deal. For those reasons and because Tehran is unlikely ever to build a financially viable uranium enrichment plant, an expansion of Iran s program would either be a colossal waste of money ... or the basis of a nuclear weapons program, which would not care about costs, the report said. Washington and its negotiating partners in the agreement should find a way to make the deal s restrictions permanent or severely extend their expiration times, it said. Under the deal between Iran, Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States, Tehran agreed to restrict its nuclear program in return for the lifting of economic sanctions that had crippled its economy. The report comes as Trump weighs whether to certify to Congress that Iran is complying with the agreement. He has until Oct. 16 to make that decision. Decertifying Iran could lead Congress to reimpose U.S. sanctions on Iran, threatening to collapse the deal and intensify tension in the Middle East. Supporters of the deal, called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, insist that strong international monitoring will prevent Iran from developing nuclear bombs. Iran has denied that it is seeking nuclear weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency, which monitors the pact, has found no material breaches by Iran, a judgment with which Washington has concurred. Tehran has exceeded some deal restrictions, such as a limit on its heavy water stockpile, used in nuclear reactors, the Institute for Science and International Security said in a November 2016 report. But it either rectified some infractions or won exemptions - while President Barack Obama was in office - before the pact took effect in January 2016. In its new report the institute listed other alleged Iran compliance issues, including changes to the design of a heavy water reactor that can produce plutonium, another weapons fuel. Iran s improved compliance this year in part has been unintentional or accidental because advanced uranium enrichment devices called centrifuges have broken during testing more often than expected, according to the think tank report. Enrichment produces low-enriched uranium for power plants, but it also can make highly enriched weapons-grade uranium. By August, Iran had tested eight advanced IR-8 centrifuges although the deal limits it to one at most, the report said, adding that Iran also operated between 13 and 15 interconnected IR-6 machines, which the deal restricts to 10. However, according to the report, all but one of the IR-8s and many of the IR-6s broke because carbon fiber components failed. David Albright, a former U.N. nuclear inspector who authored the new report, said Iran s compliance also had improved because the United States is taking a tougher line on attempts to violate the nuclear limits and exploit loopholes. Two sources, including a senior U.S. official, said on Wednesday that the White House does not want to kill the deal. Instead, it wants lawmakers to hold off taking action while it discusses with European allies making the limits on Iran s program permanent and fixing what U.S. officials consider other flaws, said the sources, who requested anonymity.

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Obama’s Brother Releases UNAUTHORIZED FOOTAGE OF PRESIDENT – White House Panicking

Comments Barack Hussein Obama’s half-brother Malik Obama has become a thorn in the president’s side during this election as he has turned on his family by publicly supporting Donald Trump for president. The Gateway Pundit reported that Malik posted a video of himself wearing a Trump hat on Twitter to prove that his account is real. Watch as Malik tells his followers to “vote Trump,” something we never thought we’d hear an Obama say! — MicroSpookyLeaks™ (@WDFx2EU7) October 27, 2016 Trump made headlines a few weeks ago when he invited Malik to the second presidential debate as his guest. Western Journalism reported that Malik has been an outspoken Trump supporter throughout this election. “I like Donald Trump because he speaks from the heart,” he said. “‘Make America Great Again’ is a great slogan. I would like to meet him.” As for Trump, he’s very excited to meet Malik as well. “I look very much forward to meeting and being with Malik,” Trump said. “He gets it far better than his brother.” Malik was once a Democrat, but he’s said that foreign policy missteps and social concerns have caused him to move to the Republican side. He has also said he distrusts Hillary Clinton, citing her scandals and dishonesty, which he says have only gotten worse since he originally voiced his support for Trump. “I don’t like [Hillary] Clinton,” Malik said in September, in spite of his half-brother’s proud endorsement. “She is dishonest and a liar. She keeps on lying about emails every time.” Malik has slammed Clinton’s performance as Secretary of State, pointing out that she inflamed chaos and violence in the Middle East. What do you think about this? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section.

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Russia’s biggest IMAX film is ready for death or glory

movies , culture , interview Director Alexei Mizgiryov at a news conference before the premiere of the film "The Duelist" in Moscow. Source:Ekaterina Chesnokova/RIA Novosti Even during the stage of production, Alexei Mizgirev’s The Duelist caught the attention of the international cinema industry. The world premiere of the movie was held the Toronto Film Festival and, in collaboration with IMAX, the film is being released in the U.S. and other countries. Before The Duelist, Mizgirev was considered to be only a “festival” director in Russia – all his previous pictures had gone out on limited release, and were seen by only a few thousand people. However, suddenly, in cooperation with producer Alexander Rodnyansky ( Jayne Mansfield’s Car , Cloud Atlas , Leviathan ), he has made one of the most expensive projects in the history of Russian cinema. Set in the 1860s, The Duelist is a costume drama about a killer, the officer Yakovlev, who engages in duels for other people. For some mystical reason bullets cannot kill him, so he always wins his duels. Before the film released, Mizgirev spoke to RIR about his new film. RIR: How does it feel, after directing only low-budget auteur films, to be a director of a film that cost such a large amount of money, going by standards of the Russian film industry? Alexei Mizgirev: People ask me this a lot. At first I was a bit lost and didn’t know how to answer, because I hadn’t really noticed a big difference. With The Duelist we had no problems, for example with decoration and costume, because we could shoot where we wanted and didn’t have to save on props. I was now rid of many problems that had cropped up in previous films, because the producers were able to solve them perfectly. Video by SonyPicturesRU / YouTube This was all very pleasant. However such changes indirectly affect the creative process. We were constantly discussing points to work on, but it was all very democratic, because we both understood that there are mass-produced, cookie-cutter films, and others that are single, unique pieces. The Duelist is a unique film, in which individuality and the author’s style is important – with the background of a great story and modern visual effects, of course. RIR: All your preceding films have been about acute social issues in modern Russian life. And here we have balls, costumes, duels, and nobles in waistcoats. Where has this interest in this period come from? A.M.: Any director wants millions of people to watch his films. But when you’re given a budget of $1-2 million, it’s difficult to create beautiful and spectacular cinema . You would like to, but it’s impossible for objective reasons. Therefore, an interest in contemporary affairs is in some respects necessary, simply because you don’t have to waste money on expensive decorations and computer effects. The concept of The Duelist has already been in the works for several years, it was just lying somewhere, literally two paragraphs long. And then something happened, and I thought to myself, this needs to happen now. Even though realizing this idea was very far off, I already thought then that the biggest problem I’d have with it would not be to do with finance. RIR: What sort of difficulties are you talking about? A.M.: I am talking about the 19 th century itself, or rather, its image, which is difficult to portray in audiovisual art. You probably won’t disagree that Russian viewers only know about the 19 th century from TV series, since the last proper film made for the big screen was [Vladimir Motyl’s] The Captivating Star of Happiness , shot in 1975. But even this film was riddled with a mass of clichés and openly mistaken information about the 19 th century. A common film market for Russia, India and China? When I was preparing for The Duelist I sifted through a mass of sources on this period. It turns out that we don’t really know anything about them, what they really ate, drank, talked about, and how they really dressed, apart from some pleasant misconceptions we have. The 19 th century for the contemporary viewer is a load of old mothballs at granny’s place or some sedate play from a provincial theatre. I’d like to get rid of this stereotype and show this period like no one else has done – bright, harsh, echoing with our times. This is of course a grandiose task, but I’m not afraid of the work, or the public reaction to this new style of discussion about the past. This is a complete breaking of the mould. RIR: However the visual style of The Duelist has several times been compared to Sherlock Holmes by Guy Ritchie and the film Vidoqc by Pitof. Do you like having such parallels with your work? A.M.: Such comparisons have a lot of truth in them. However this is a very decorative work, a celebration of the genre in its purest form. The Duelist is a little different, including if we talk about its visual effects. RIR: With The Duelist , everyone asks you about the idea of honour, which is the main trigger for the film. You answer, expectedly, that honour is a timeless thing, and for this reason a story about this will always resound with the present. But it seems in your film fatalism plays just as important a role, one which is peculiar to the film’s characters. We’re guessing that this emphasis on the doomed characters’ relationship with fate is not an accidental one? A.M.: Yes, this is one of the driving forces of the film. Delving into stories about duels, I stumbled across an eloquent fact. In the 19 th century, in the birthplace of duels, France, they practically disappeared, like in many other countries. This is linked to the spread of firearms, which were far more dangerous than swords and which greatly levelled the playing field. For exactly this reason, duels flourished in Russia, I think for the most part thanks to fatalism, which to this day remains as one of the principle characteristics of the Russian mentality. Sink or swim – it is very much our thing, even if we are talking about life and death. The Duelist is precisely about this. Facebook

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Police Unions Hail Trump’s Easing of Scrutiny. Local Officials Worry. - The New York Times

Black pedestrians in Baltimore stopped without reasonable suspicion. Black drivers in Ferguson, Mo. searched much more frequently than whites. Cleveland residents punched and kicked by officers and subjected to stun guns, without posing any threat. In report after report in the Obama years, Justice Department lawyers found patterns of rights violations and used them as leverage to force local departments to agree to major policing overhauls. But the Trump administration announced this week that it was backing away from that approach, a move that prompted fierce debate on Tuesday in cities across the country. Many police unions welcomed the news, saying the Obama administration’s approach had impeded law enforcement and unfairly painted many good officers as wrongdoers. The unions, a source of support for President Trump during last year’s campaign, welcomed his administration’s announcement as proof that Mr. Trump would swiftly meet his promises to restore “law and order” to the country. But their view contrasted sharply with those of many police chiefs and politicians who have been living under agreements struck with the Justice Department, who vowed to continue making changes to their police departments with or without the department’s imprimatur. They say that the results of consent decrees, which are backed by a court order, and memorandums of agreement, which are reached out of court, have been mostly positive, if mixed, and in some cases absolutely essential. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has said he doubts whether federal intervention in local departments is useful or appropriate, ordered a review of those agreements and has signaled his resistance to new ones. In a March 31 memo, he assigned the task to the new deputy attorney general and associate attorney general, who are awaiting confirmation. It is not clear whether Mr. Sessions will seek early termination of agreements in effect in places like Cleveland New Orleans Ferguson, Mo. Albuquerque and Maricopa County, Ariz. The agreements, which usually expire after five years, mandate changes in training and policies like supervision, reporting contacts with the public, conducting searches, using force, conflict, handling people with mental illnesses, and race relations. “What Attorney General Sessions did, I think that’s just President Trump following through on his promise to help law enforcement,” said Stephen Loomis, president of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association. “And citizens are going to benefit from it. ” Police unions, individual officers and conservatives often interpret criticism of police practices — whether from Black Lives Matter protesters, Justice Department lawyers or former President Barack Obama — as hostility to the police. They argue that the kinds of changes demanded by the department actually hinder policing by hurting morale and making officers less aggressive, a claim that many criminologists dispute. During the campaign, Mr. Trump picked up that theme and repeatedly referred to a major surge in violent crime — though, in fact, crime in recent years has been at some of the lowest levels ever recorded. He was endorsed by a number of law enforcement organizations, including the national Fraternal Order of Police. In Chicago, where violence has soared in recent years, the city has announced a set of policy changes to address both crime and tense relations between the police and minority communities. In January, the Justice Department released a scathing report on excessive force and racial discrimination, and under Mr. Obama, a consent decree would probably have followed. On Tuesday, Ian Prior, a Justice Department spokesman, said he could not address what the department might do next in Chicago. Dean Angelo Sr. president of the Fraternal Order of Police chapter that represents Chicago officers, said their problem was not police conduct, but that “they have been demonized by political leaders and others for three years straight. ” Meeting last week with Mr. Sessions, “I said, ‘Our girls and guys are worried about losing their jobs for doing their job,’” Mr. Angelo said. “And he goes, ‘That’s not a good thing. ’” Shaun Willoughby, president of the Albuquerque Police Officers Association, said that the changes the city had made had improved police training, but that the consent decree created far too much paperwork for officers, limiting their policing time. And he said its restrictions on the use of force were too vague, “which leads to officers being uncertain — they’re hesitant. ” But Richard J. Berry, Albuquerque’s mayor, said that while he had some reservations — like the cost of paying monitors — he saw the consent decree as largely positive. It may have hurt officers’ morale at first, he said, but “time and experience with it is making it less of an issue. ” The dispute illustrates the often stark divides between officers and the police chiefs and mayors who oversee them. For bosses, a harsh Justice Department report and several years of court supervision can provide the political cover and authority they need to shake things up. For community activists who complain of police abuses, and who suspect that mayors and chiefs are not sincere about making changes, federal intervention offers a way to hold local agencies to their promises. Baltimore, the subject of another blistering Justice Department assessment, reached a consent decree agreement with the Obama Justice Department, but it has not yet been finalized by a federal judge, and Mr. Sessions asked the court to hold off for 90 days. The city’s police commissioner, Kevin Davis, pushed back hard on Tuesday, calling the requested delay “a punch in the gut to the community — certainly to me. ” He suggested that Mr. Sessions was out of step not only with people in Baltimore, but with law enforcement leaders across America. Lt. Gene Ryan, president of the Fraternal Order of Police in Baltimore, said he recognized the value of the agreement — which, among other things, would require the city to spend more on needed equipment like laptop computers in police cruisers — but agreed with the attorney general that consent decrees were overused. Officials in cities that are subject to Justice Department agreements, or were headed in that direction under Mr. Obama, said they would continue with reforms no matter what Mr. Sessions did. “The center of gravity on police reform just shifted from Washington to cities around the country,” said Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, which advises departments. “But and policing reform is not going to go away. Cities like Baltimore and Chicago still have local constituencies that are going to expect change. ” Still, some critics of policing are less hopeful, arguing that federal oversight is crucial to hold local leaders to their promises. In Ferguson, more than two and a half years after the police shooting of a black teenager, Michael Brown, set off weeks of unrest, “life does not feel different for people,” said Emily Davis, a community organizer. Ferguson has been under a consent decree since last year, she said, but “they’re not treating people better. ” Ronal W. Serpas recalled that when he was the police officer in New Orleans, the Justice Department investigated his department and identified problems. City leaders made some changes and promised others, and no consent degree was imposed. But Mr. Serpas left the city for nine years, and when he returned in 2010 as police superintendent, he said, he found an agency that had moved sharply backward. “While it’s fair to say that the federal government is not in the business of managing local law enforcement, they certainly are in the business of enforcing the Constitution,” he said. “And if not them, who?”

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CAN YOU GUESS THE ONE THING Majority Of Bernie Sanders Supporters Have In Common?

The function of socialism is to raise suffering to a higher level. Norman MailerBernie Sanders has raised a lot of money during the 2016 Democratic primary. In fact, his supporters often brag about his fundraising as proof of his viability as a candidate, just like Obama supporters did back in 2008.With all that in mind, you ll never guess what most of Bernie s donors have in common.The Los Angeles Times reports:Who gives money to Bernie Sanders?Small-dollar contributions have been the fuel that has propelled Sen. Bernie Sanders presidential bid, making it one of the most successful insurgent campaigns in Democratic party history, but little has been known about those donors because campaigns don t have to publicize the names of people who give $200 or less.Now, a Times analysis of nearly 7 million individual contributions has provided unprecedented detail about the army of people behind the $27 donations Sanders mentions at virtually every campaign stop.Many resemble Emily Condit, 40 of Sylmar, who has contributed three times $5 each to the Vermont senator s campaign.Condit, who has several physical disabilities, is among the largest single group of Sanders donors those who don t have a job. Of the $209 million given to the Vermont senator s campaign, about one out of every four dollars came from those not in the workforce, who include the unemployed or retired.Here s a handy chart that puts things in perspective:So the free stuff candidate is being bankrolled mostly by people who aren t working.Anyone surprised?Via: Gateway Pundit

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