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House Dem Aide: We Didn’t Even See Comey’s Letter Until Jason Chaffetz Tweeted It By Darrell Lucus on October 30, 2016 Subscribe Jason Chaffetz on the stump in American Fork, Utah ( image courtesy Michael Jolley, available under a Creative Commons-BY license) With apologies to Keith Olbermann, there is no doubt who the Worst Person in The World is this week–FBI Director James Comey. But according to a House Democratic aide, it looks like we also know who the second-worst person is as well. It turns out that when Comey sent his now-infamous letter announcing that the FBI was looking into emails that may be related to Hillary Clinton’s email server, the ranking Democrats on the relevant committees didn’t hear about it from Comey. They found out via a tweet from one of the Republican committee chairmen. As we now know, Comey notified the Republican chairmen and Democratic ranking members of the House Intelligence, Judiciary, and Oversight committees that his agency was reviewing emails it had recently discovered in order to see if they contained classified information. Not long after this letter went out, Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz set the political world ablaze with this tweet. FBI Dir just informed me, "The FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation." Case reopened — Jason Chaffetz (@jasoninthehouse) October 28, 2016 Of course, we now know that this was not the case . Comey was actually saying that it was reviewing the emails in light of “an unrelated case”–which we now know to be Anthony Weiner’s sexting with a teenager. But apparently such little things as facts didn’t matter to Chaffetz. The Utah Republican had already vowed to initiate a raft of investigations if Hillary wins–at least two years’ worth, and possibly an entire term’s worth of them. Apparently Chaffetz thought the FBI was already doing his work for him–resulting in a tweet that briefly roiled the nation before cooler heads realized it was a dud. But according to a senior House Democratic aide, misreading that letter may have been the least of Chaffetz’ sins. That aide told Shareblue that his boss and other Democrats didn’t even know about Comey’s letter at the time–and only found out when they checked Twitter. “Democratic Ranking Members on the relevant committees didn’t receive Comey’s letter until after the Republican Chairmen. In fact, the Democratic Ranking Members didn’ receive it until after the Chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Jason Chaffetz, tweeted it out and made it public.” So let’s see if we’ve got this right. The FBI director tells Chaffetz and other GOP committee chairmen about a major development in a potentially politically explosive investigation, and neither Chaffetz nor his other colleagues had the courtesy to let their Democratic counterparts know about it. Instead, according to this aide, he made them find out about it on Twitter. There has already been talk on Daily Kos that Comey himself provided advance notice of this letter to Chaffetz and other Republicans, giving them time to turn on the spin machine. That may make for good theater, but there is nothing so far that even suggests this is the case. After all, there is nothing so far that suggests that Comey was anything other than grossly incompetent and tone-deaf. What it does suggest, however, is that Chaffetz is acting in a way that makes Dan Burton and Darrell Issa look like models of responsibility and bipartisanship. He didn’t even have the decency to notify ranking member Elijah Cummings about something this explosive. If that doesn’t trample on basic standards of fairness, I don’t know what does. Granted, it’s not likely that Chaffetz will have to answer for this. He sits in a ridiculously Republican district anchored in Provo and Orem; it has a Cook Partisan Voting Index of R+25, and gave Mitt Romney a punishing 78 percent of the vote in 2012. Moreover, the Republican House leadership has given its full support to Chaffetz’ planned fishing expedition. But that doesn’t mean we can’t turn the hot lights on him. After all, he is a textbook example of what the House has become under Republican control. And he is also the Second Worst Person in the World. About Darrell Lucus Darrell is a 30-something graduate of the University of North Carolina who considers himself a journalist of the old school. An attempt to turn him into a member of the religious right in college only succeeded in turning him into the religious right's worst nightmare--a charismatic Christian who is an unapologetic liberal. His desire to stand up for those who have been scared into silence only increased when he survived an abusive three-year marriage. You may know him on Daily Kos as Christian Dem in NC . Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook . Click here to buy Darrell a Mello Yello. Connect

Ever get the feeling your life circles the roundabout rather than heads in a straight line toward the intended destination? [Hillary Clinton remains the big woman on campus in leafy, liberal Wellesley, Massachusetts. Everywhere else votes her most likely to don her inauguration dress for the remainder of her days the way Miss Havisham forever wore that wedding dress. Speaking of Great Expectations, Hillary Rodham overflowed with them 48 years ago when she first addressed a Wellesley graduating class. The president of the college informed those gathered in 1969 that the students needed “no debate so far as I could ascertain as to who their spokesman was to be” (kind of the like the Democratic primaries in 2016 minus the terms unknown then even at a Seven Sisters school). “I am very glad that Miss Adams made it clear that what I am speaking for today is all of us — the 400 of us,” Miss Rodham told her classmates. After appointing herself Edger Bergen to the Charlie McCarthys and Mortimer Snerds in attendance, the bespectacled in granny glasses (awarding her matronly wisdom — or at least John Lennon wisdom) took issue with the previous speaker. Despite becoming the first to win election to a seat in the U. S. Senate since Reconstruction, Edward Brooke came in for criticism for calling for “empathy” for the goals of protestors as he criticized tactics. Though Clinton in her senior thesis on Saul Alinsky lamented “Black Power demagogues” and “elitist arrogance and repressive intolerance” within the New Left, similar words coming out of a Republican necessitated a brief rebuttal. “Trust,” Rodham ironically observed in 1969, “this is one word that when I asked the class at our rehearsal what it was they wanted me to say for them, everyone came up to me and said ‘Talk about trust, talk about the lack of trust both for us and the way we feel about others. Talk about the trust bust.’ What can you say about it? What can you say about a feeling that permeates a generation and that perhaps is not even understood by those who are distrusted?” The “trust bust” certainly busted Clinton’s 2016 plans. She certainly did not even understand that people distrusted her. After Whitewater, Travelgate, the vast conspiracy, Benghazi, and the missing emails, Clinton found herself the distrusted voice on Friday. There was a load of compromising on the road to the broadening of her political horizons. And distrust from the American people — Trump edged her 48 percent to 38 percent on the question immediately prior to November’s election — stood as a major reason for the closing of those horizons. Clinton described her vanquisher and his supporters as embracing a “lie,” a “con,” “alternative facts,” and “a assault on truth and reason. ” She failed to explain why the American people chose his lies over her truth. “As the history majors among you here today know all too well, when people in power invent their own facts and attack those who question them, it can mark the beginning of the end of a free society,” she offered. “That is not hyperbole. ” Like so many people to emerge from the 1960s, Hillary Clinton embarked upon a long, strange trip. From high school Goldwater Girl and Wellesley College Republican president to Democratic politician, Clinton drank in the times and the place that gave her a degree. More significantly, she went from idealist to cynic, as a comparison of her two Wellesley commencement addresses show. Way back when, she lamented that “for too long our leaders have viewed politics as the art of the possible, and the challenge now is to practice politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible possible. ” Now, as the big woman on campus but the odd woman out of the White House, she wonders how her current station is even possible. “Why aren’t I 50 points ahead?” she asked in September. In May she asks why she isn’t president. The woman famously dubbed a “congenital liar” by Bill Safire concludes that lies did her in — theirs, mind you, not hers. Getting stood up on Election Day, like finding yourself the jilted bride on your wedding day, inspires dangerous delusions.

Videos 15 Civilians Killed In Single US Airstrike Have Been Identified The rate at which civilians are being killed by American airstrikes in Afghanistan is now higher than it was in 2014 when the US was engaged in active combat operations. Photo of Hellfire missiles being loaded onto a US military Reaper drone in Afghanistan by Staff Sgt. Brian Ferguson/U.S. Air Force. The Bureau has been able to identify 15 civilians killed in a single US drone strike in Afghanistan last month – the biggest loss of civilian life in one strike since the attack on the Medecins Sans Frontieres hospital (MSF) last October. The US claimed it had conducted a “counter-terrorism” strike against Islamic State (IS) fighters when it hit Nangarhar province with missiles on September 28. But the next day the United Nations issued an unusually rapid and strong statement saying the strike had killed 15 civilians and injured 13 others who had gathered at a house to celebrate a tribal elder’s return from a pilgrimage to Mecca. The Bureau spoke to a man named Haji Rais who said he was the owner of the house that was targeted. He said 15 people were killed and 19 others injured, and provided their names (listed below). The Bureau was able to independently verify the identities of those who died. Rais’ son, a headmaster at a local school, was among them. Another man, Abdul Hakim, lost three of his sons in the attack. Rais said he had no involvement with IS and denied US claims that IS members had visited his house before the strike. He said: “I did not even speak to those sort of people on the phone let alone receiving them in my house.” The deaths amount to the biggest confirmed loss of civilian life in a single American strike in Afghanistan since the attack on the MSF hospital in Kunduz last October, which killed at least 42 people. The Nangarhar strike was not the only US attack to kill civilians in September. The Bureau’s data indicates that as many as 45 civilians and allied soldiers were killed in four American strikes in Afghanistan and Somalia that month. On September 18 a pair of strikes killed eight Afghan policemen in Tarinkot, the capital of Urozgan provice. US jets reportedly hit a police checkpoint, killing one officer, before returning to target first responders. The use of this tactic – known as a “double-tap” strike – is controversial because they often hit civilian rescuers. The US told the Bureau it had conducted the strike against individuals firing on and posing a threat to Afghan forces. The email did not directly address the allegations of Afghan policemen being killed. At the end of the month in Somalia, citizens burnt US flags on the streets of the north-central city of Galcayo after it emerged a drone attack may have unintentionally killed 22 Somali soldiers and civilians. The strike occurred on the same day as the one in Nangarhar. In both the Somali and Afghan incidents, the US at first denied that any non-combatants had been killed. It is now investigating both the strikes in Nangarhar and Galcayo. The rate at which civilians are being killed by American airstrikes in Afghanistan is now higher than it was in 2014 when the US was engaged in active combat operations. Name

Print An Iranian woman has been sentenced to six years in prison after Iran’s Revolutionary Guard searched her home and found a notebook that contained a fictional story she’d written about a woman who was stoned to death, according to the Eurasia Review . Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee, 35, is the wife of political prisoner Arash Sadeghi, 36, who is serving a 19-year prison sentence for being a human rights activist, the publication reported. “When the intelligence unit of the Revolutionary Guards came to arrest her husband, they raided their apartment – without a warrant – and found drafts of stories that Ebrahimi Iraee had written,” the article stated. “One of the confiscated drafts was a story about stoning women to death for adultery – never published, never presented to anyone,” the article stated. “The narrative followed the story of a protagonist that watched a movie about stoning of women under Islamic law for adultery.

In these trying times, Jackie Mason is the Voice of Reason. [In this week’s exclusive clip for Breitbart News, Jackie discusses the looming threat of North Korea, and explains how President Donald Trump could win the support of the Hollywood left if the U. S. needs to strike first. “If he decides to bomb them, the whole country will be behind him, because everybody will realize he had no choice and that was the only thing to do,” Jackie says. “Except the Hollywood left. They’ll get nauseous. ” “[Trump] could win the left over, they’ll fall in love with him in a minute. If he bombed them for a better reason,” Jackie explains. “Like if they have no transgender toilets. ” Jackie also says it’s no surprise that Hollywood celebrities didn’t support Trump’s strike on a Syrian airfield this month. “They were infuriated,” he says. “Because it might only save lives. That doesn’t mean anything to them. If it only saved the environment, or climate change! They’d be the happiest people in the world. ” Still, Jackie says he’s got nothing against Hollywood celebs. They’ve got a tough life in this country. Watch Jackie’s latest clip above. Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum

PARIS — France chose an idealistic, traditional candidate in Sunday’s primary to represent the Socialist and parties in the presidential election this spring. The candidate, Benoît Hamon, 49, who ran on the slogan that he would “make France’s heart beat,” bested Manuel Valls, the former prime minister, whose campaign has promoted more policies and who has a strong background. Mr. Hamon appeared to have won by a wide margin, with incomplete returns showing him with an estimated 58 percent of the vote to Mr. Valls’s 41 percent. “Tonight the left holds its head up high again it is looking to the future,” Mr. Hamon said, addressing his supporters. “Our country needs the left, but a modern, innovative left,” he said. Mr. Hamon’s victory was the clearest sign yet that voters on the left want a break with the policies of President François Hollande, who in December announced that he would not seek . However, Mr. Hamon’s strong showing is unlikely to change widespread assessments that candidates have little chance of making it into the second round of voting in the general election. The first round of the general election is set for April 23 and the runoff for May 7. The Socialist Party is deeply divided, and one measure of its lack of popular enthusiasm was the relatively low number of people voting. About two million people voted in the second round of the primary on Sunday, in contrast with about 2. 9 million in the second round of the last presidential primary on the left, in 2011. However, much of the conventional wisdom over how the elections will go has been thrown into question over the past week, because the leading candidate, François Fillon, who represents the main party, the Republicans, was accused of paying his wife large sums of money to work as his parliamentary aide. While nepotism is legal in the French political system, it is not clear that she actually did any work. Prosecutors who specialize in financial malfeasance are reviewing the case. France’s electoral system allows multiple candidates to run for president in the first round of voting, but only the top two go on to a second round. Mr. Hamon is entering a race that is already crowded on the left, with candidates who include Mélenchon on the far left, and Emmanuel Macron, an independent who served as economy minister in Mr. Hollande’s government and who embraces more policies. Unless he decides to withdraw, Mr. Fillon, the mainstream right candidate, will also run, as will the extreme right candidate Marine Le Pen. The two have been expected to go to the runoff. Mr. Hamon’s victory can be attributed at least in part to his image as an idealist and traditional leftist candidate who appeals to union voters as well as more environmentally concerned and socially liberal young people. Unlike Mr. Valls, he also clearly distanced himself from some of Mr. Hollande’s more unpopular policies, especially the economic ones. Thomas Kekenbosch, 22, a student and one of the leaders of the group the Youth With Benoît Hamon, said Mr. Hamon embodied a new hope for those on the left. “We have a perspective we have something to do, to build,” Mr. Kekenbosch said. Mr. Hollande had disappointed many young people because under him the party abandoned ideals, such as support for workers, that many voters believe in, according to Mr. Kekenbosch. Mr. Hollande’s government, under pressure from the European Union to meet budget restraints, struggled to pass labor code reforms to make the market more attractive to foreign investors and also to encourage French businesses to expand in France. The measures ultimately passed after weeks of strikes, but they were watered down and generated little concrete progress in improving France’s roughly 10 percent unemployment rate and its nearly 25 percent youth joblessness rate. Mr. Hamon strongly endorses a stimulus approach to improving the economy and has promised to phase in a universal income, which would especially help young people looking for work, but would also supplement the livelihood of French workers. The end goal would be to have everyone receive 750 euros per month (about $840). “We have someone that trusts us,” Mr. Kekenbosch said, “who says: ‘I give you enough to pay for your studies. You can have a scholarship which spares you from working at McDonald’s on provisional contracts for 4 years. ” Mr. Hamon advocates phasing out diesel fuel and encouraging drivers to replace vehicles that use petroleum products with electrical ones. His leftist pedigree began early. His father worked at an arsenal in Brest, a city in the far west of Brittany, and his mother worked off and on as a secretary. He was an early member of the Movement of Young Socialists, and he has continued to work closely with them through his political life. He also worked for Martine Aubry, now the mayor of Lille and a former Socialist Party leader.

Donald J. Trump is scheduled to make a highly anticipated visit to an church in Detroit on Saturday, the first such visit of his campaign. There, he will participate in a session conducted by Bishop Wayne T. Jackson of the church, Great Faith Ministries International. Given the importance of the visit, the Trump team went so far as to script Mr. Trump’s answers to Bishop Jackson’s questions, which were submitted in advance. After this article was published on Thursday night, a campaign official said that Mr. Trump would also speak to the church’s congregation and then tour some neighborhoods with Ben Carson, a former presidential candidate and Detroit native. Below are excerpts from a draft of the script that was obtained by The New York Times. _____ Mr. Trump there is racial divide in our country and it is evident that the tension is boiling over. Case and point Reverend Pinckney in South Carolina was gunned down when a white young man came into their Bible Study and slaughtered the Reverend and eight other individuals because he wanted to start a race war. What would your administration do to bring down the racial tension that is in our Country? In the Bible Jesus said that a house divided cannot stand. Our best hope for erasing racial tensions in America is to work toward a society. In business, we hire, retain and award based on merit. In society, however, we have divisions that can only be eliminated if we have equal opportunity and then equal access to programs and institutions that will lift all people in the country. We have to reform our tax system so that we can spur economic growth for the long haul. We have to have stronger enforcement of immigration laws. We have to renegotiate our trade deals so that we can bring advantage back to the American workforce. But perhaps most important is that we must provide equal opportunity for a quality education for all Americans. The higher the educational attainment, the greater the likelihood one can climb the economic ladder. We must bring school choice programs to our cities and we must get rid of Common Core. We must make sure that access, affordability and accountability are brought into our higher education system. Without a focus on educational outcomes for every American, we will perpetuate the permanent underclass that progressive policies have sustained. Republicans like me need to have the courage to speak the truth about where we are and what has to be done. We have to have the courage to go into communities and work with everyone there to make sure that our schools are good and that our children have access to the whatever educational situation they may need. This is not something one person can do, but it is something that we can do together. _____ Mr. Trump there is a perception that your administration is racist. With many of the African American voters their belief is that the Republican Party as a whole does not cater to African American needs. In 2008 and 2012 we had two Republican Candidates John McCain and Mitt Romney and neither one of them came to Detroit, or any urban area that I can remember to even address the concerns of our community. First I would like to commend you for coming to our community as a Republican Candidate. Second I need to know how would you change that perception in our community? The proof, as they say, will be in the pudding. Coming into a community is meaningless unless we can offer an alternative to the horrible progressive agenda that has perpetuated a permanent underclass in America. We need to be true to our word and offer all Americans more opportunities so that each and every one of them can reach their full potential. This means economic policies that will bring jobs back to America and will raise wages for all. This means working hard to provide as many educational options as possible to our parents and children. This means cleaning up drugs and making our neighborhoods and communities safer. We need to get people off welfare and back to work. We need to make sure that anyone who qualifies can go into a bank, get a loan and then start a business. We need to reduce regulations and expand options for people who want to be independent of government. We need to make sure that people can worship how they want and where they want without worrying that some federal agency is going to threaten the religious liberties. Republicans have better options. We just need to have the courage to present them with conviction. _____ Mr. Trump what is your vision for America? And specifically Black America? If you repeal Obama care what is your plan to provide health care and medicine to those who can’t afford it, yet need it the most? As President, I must serve all Americans without regard to race, ethnicity or any other qualification. I must approach my task with the utmost wisdom and make sure that all Americans have opportunities to achieve to their potential. If we are to Make America Great Again, we must reduce, rather than highlight, issues of race in this country. I want to make race disappear as a factor in government and governance. Every individual, regardless of race or ethnicity, must have access to the full array of opportunities in America. My vision for America is that every citizen and legal resident of this nation will be able to stand side by side and be proud of the fact that they live in the greatest nation on earth. As for the Affordable Care Act, I will work to repeal the act and replace it with market driven solutions that will offer more access to healthcare at more affordable prices. Every American should be able to purchase health insurance across state lines, have health savings account that belong to them, have price transparency so they can shop for the best services at the best prices and know that they will not have to compete with those who are clogging the system simply because they are in this country illegally. We want to block grant Medicaid so that states can provide services closer to the people. We want to make sure that every American has great economic opportunity so that they can seek out their own health insurance and still be able to afford it. This approach will serve all Americans and will ensure that more Americans are covered by better insurance and healthcare options. _____ Mr. Trump I am a registered Democrat but I am an undecided voter in this election for 2016. It is not only myself but there has been a lot of Pastors and African Americans who have not made up their minds concerning who they are going to cast their vote for. The latest polls indicate that you have 1 percent of the African American vote. What can you say to undecided voters such as myself and others in the African American Community that will win our vote on November 8, 2016? And beyond winning, why is the African American vote important to you? All votes are important to me and my campaign. Your vote, your neighbor’s vote, the vote of every American is critical and I must do all I can to make sure you know that if you vote for me, you are voting for a stronger, more vibrant America. My policies offer you a clear choice. You can continue down the road of progressivism that has created a permanent underclass in this country that, unfortunately, includes far too many people of color. If you want a better America, you must break from the historical hold that Democrats have had on people of color and move to options that allow you to achieve your potential. This is all about opportunity — not outcomes and promises of things to come that never materialize. The progressives have worked tirelessly to bring all Americans down to one level rather than allowing as many as possible to rise as high as possible. Education, jobs, religious liberty and protection of civil rights are the promises that I will keep, not just utter to gain favor. If you are interested in a greater America with more opportunity, liberty and prosperity, you must take a chance and walk over to my side. If you want a strong partner in this journey, you will vote for me. I will never let you down. By the way, my support is now up to 8% and climbing.

A week before Michael T. Flynn resigned as national security adviser, a sealed proposal was to his office, outlining a way for President Trump to lift sanctions against Russia. Mr. Flynn is gone, having been caught lying about his own discussion of sanctions with the Russian ambassador. But the proposal, a peace plan for Ukraine and Russia, remains, along with those pushing it: Michael D. Cohen, the president’s personal lawyer, who delivered the document Felix H. Sater, a business associate who helped Mr. Trump scout deals in Russia and a Ukrainian lawmaker trying to rise in a political opposition movement shaped in part by Mr. Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort. At a time when Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia, and the people connected to him, are under heightened scrutiny — with investigations by American intelligence agencies, the F. B. I. and Congress — some of his associates remain willing and eager to wade into efforts behind the scenes. Mr. Trump has confounded Democrats and Republicans alike with his repeated praise for the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, and his desire to forge an alliance. While there is nothing illegal about such unofficial efforts, a proposal that seems to tip toward Russian interests may set off alarms. The amateur diplomats say their goal is simply to help settle a grueling, conflict that has cost 10, 000 lives. “Who doesn’t want to help bring about peace?” Mr. Cohen asked. But the proposal contains more than just a peace plan. Andrii V. Artemenko, the Ukrainian lawmaker, who sees himself as a leader of a future Ukraine, claims to have evidence — “names of companies, wire transfers” — showing corruption by the Ukrainian president, Petro O. Poroshenko, that could help oust him. And Mr. Artemenko said he had received encouragement for his plans from top aides to Mr. Putin. “A lot of people will call me a Russian agent, a U. S. agent, a C. I. A. agent,” Mr. Artemenko said. “But how can you find a good solution between our countries if we do not talk?” Mr. Cohen and Mr. Sater said they had not spoken to Mr. Trump about the proposal, and have no experience in foreign policy. Mr. Cohen is one of several Trump associates under scrutiny in an F. B. I. counterintelligence examination of links with Russia, according to law enforcement officials he has denied any illicit connections. The two others involved in the effort have somewhat questionable pasts: Mr. Sater, 50, a pleaded guilty to a role in a stock manipulation scheme decades ago that involved the Mafia. Mr. Artemenko spent two and a half years in jail in Kiev in the early 2000s on embezzlement charges, later dropped, which he said had been politically motivated. While it is unclear if the White House will take the proposal seriously, the diplomatic freelancing has infuriated Ukrainian officials. Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States, Valeriy Chaly, said Mr. Artemenko “is not entitled to present any alternative peace plans on behalf of Ukraine to any foreign government, including the U. S. administration. ” At a security conference in Munich on Friday, Mr. Poroshenko warned the West against “appeasement” of Russia, and some American experts say offering Russia any alternative to a international agreement on Ukraine would be a mistake. The Trump administration has sent mixed signals about the conflict in Ukraine. But given Mr. Trump’s praise for Mr. Putin, John Herbst, a former American ambassador to Ukraine, said he feared the new president might be too eager to mend relations with Russia at Ukraine’s expense — potentially with a plan like Mr. Artemenko’s. It was late January when the three men associated with the proposed plan converged on the Loews Regency, a luxury hotel on Park Avenue in Manhattan where business deals are made in a lobby furnished with leather couches, over martinis at the restaurant bar and in private conference rooms on upper floors. Mr. Cohen, 50, lives two blocks up the street, in Trump Park Avenue. A lawyer who joined the Trump Organization in 2007 as special counsel, he has worked on many deals, including a tower in the republic of Georgia and a mixed martial arts venture starring a Russian fighter. He is considered a loyal lieutenant whom Mr. Trump trusts to fix difficult problems. The F. B. I. is reviewing an unverified dossier, compiled by a former British intelligence agent and funded by Mr. Trump’s political opponents, that claims Mr. Cohen met with a Russian representative in Prague during the presidential campaign to discuss Russia’s hacking of Democratic targets. But the Russian official named in the report told The New York Times that he had never met Mr. Cohen. Mr. Cohen insists that he has never visited Prague and that the dossier’s assertions are fabrications. (Mr. Manafort is also under investigation by the F. B. I. for his connections to Russia and Ukraine.) Mr. Cohen has a personal connection to Ukraine: He is married to a Ukrainian woman and once worked with relatives there to establish an ethanol business. Mr. Artemenko, tall and burly, arrived at the Manhattan hotel between visits to Washington. (His wife, he said, met the first lady, Melania Trump, years ago during their modeling careers, but he did not try to meet Mr. Trump.) He had attended the inauguration and visited Congress, posting on Facebook his admiration for Mr. Trump and talking up his peace plan in meetings with American lawmakers. He entered Parliament in 2014, the year that the former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych fled to Moscow amid protests over his economic alignment with Russia and corruption. Mr. Manafort, who had been instrumental in getting Mr. Yanukovych elected, helped shape a political bloc that sprang up to oppose the new president, Mr. Poroshenko, a wealthy businessman who has taken a far tougher stance toward Russia and accused Mr. Putin of wanting to absorb Ukraine into a new Russian Empire. Mr. Artemenko, 48, emerged from the opposition that Mr. Manafort nurtured. (The two men have never met, Mr. Artemenko said.) Before entering politics, Mr. Artemenko had business ventures in the Middle East and real estate deals in the Miami area, and had worked as an agent representing top Ukrainian athletes. Some colleagues in Parliament describe him as corrupt, untrustworthy or simply insignificant, but he appears to have amassed considerable wealth. He has fashioned himself in the image of Mr. Trump, presenting himself as Ukraine’s answer to a rising class of nationalist leaders in the West. He even traveled to Cleveland last summer for the Republican National Convention, seizing on the chance to meet with members of Mr. Trump’s campaign. “It’s time for new leaders, new approaches to the governance of the country, new principles and new negotiators in international politics,” he wrote on Facebook on Jan. 27. “Our time has come!” Mr. Artemenko said he saw in Mr. Trump an opportunity to advocate a plan for peace in Ukraine — and help advance his own political career. Essentially, his plan would require the withdrawal of all Russian forces from eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian voters would decide in a referendum whether Crimea, the Ukrainian territory seized by Russia in 2014, would be leased to Russia for a term of 50 or 100 years. The Ukrainian ambassador, Mr. Chaly, rejected a lease of that kind. “It is a gross violation of the Constitution,” he said in written answers to questions from The Times. “Such ideas can be pitched or pushed through only by those openly or covertly representing Russian interests. ” The reaction suggested why Mr. Artemenko’s project also includes the dissemination of “kompromat,” or compromising material, purportedly showing that Mr. Poroshenko and his closest associates are corrupt. Only a new government, presumably one less hostile to Russia, might take up his plan. Mr. Sater, a longtime business associate of Mr. Trump’s with connections in Russia, was willing to help Mr. Artemenko’s proposal reach the White House. Mr. Trump has sought to distance himself from Mr. Sater in recent years. If Mr. Sater “were sitting in the room right now,” Mr. Trump said in a 2013 deposition, “I really wouldn’t know what he looked like. ” But Mr. Sater worked on real estate development deals with the Trump Organization on and off for at least a decade, even after his role in the stock manipulation scheme came to light. Mr. Sater, who was born in the Soviet Union and grew up in New York, served as an executive at a firm called Bayrock Group, two floors below the Trump Organization in Trump Tower, and was later a senior adviser to Mr. Trump. He said he had been working on a plan for a Trump Tower in Moscow with a Russian real estate developer as recently as the fall of 2015, one that he said had come to a halt because of Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign. (Mr. Cohen said the Trump Organization had received a letter of intent for a project in Moscow from a Russian real estate developer at that time but determined that the project was not feasible.) Mr. Artemenko said a mutual friend had put him in touch with Mr. Sater. Helping to advance the proposal, Mr. Sater said, made sense. “I want to stop a war, number one,” he said. “Number two, I absolutely believe that the U. S. and Russia need to be allies, not enemies. If I could achieve both in one stroke, it would be a home run. ” After speaking with Mr. Sater and Mr. Artemenko in person, Mr. Cohen said he would deliver the plan to the White House. Mr. Cohen said he did not know who in the Russian government had offered encouragement on it, as Mr. Artemenko claims, but he understood there was a promise of proof of corruption by the Ukrainian president. “Fraud is never good, right?” Mr. Cohen said. He said Mr. Sater had given him the written proposal in a sealed envelope. When Mr. Cohen met with Mr. Trump in the Oval Office in early February, he said, he left the proposal in Mr. Flynn’s office. Mr. Cohen said he was waiting for a response when Mr. Flynn was forced from his post. Now Mr. Cohen, Mr. Sater and Mr. Artemenko are hoping a new national security adviser will take up their cause. On Friday the president wrote on Twitter that he had four new candidates for the job.

The BBC produced spoof on the “Real Housewives” TV programmes, which has a comedic Islamic State twist, has been criticised by Leftists and Muslims who claim the sketch is offensive. [The BBC released the trailer earlier this week and were immediately slammed by those on the left and Muslims who thought that making fun of the brides of members of the terror group was out of the bounds of conventional humour. The sketch is part of a new programme called “Revolting” written by Jolyon Rubinstein and Heydon Prowse which, according to the BBC, is “satirising the state of the nation. ” LOLOLOL pic. twitter. — Raheem Kassam (@RaheemKassam) January 4, 2017, The BBC2 Facebook page was inundated with criticism. One user wrote, “I’m mortified that the BBC had produced such a programme. This is simply bad taste. The fact it is a comedy makes it even more worrying that humour should be associated with the actions of ISIS. Is this really what TV licenses are funding! ?” Others took a different point of view including a Muslim saying, “As a Muslim I find this HILARIOUS! Brilliant! The satire is on point highlighting the pathetic ideals of a pathetic group like ISIS. ” Not all Muslims agreed with the sentiment and users on Twitter expressed just as much outrage for the sketch. One man, a Bangladeshi, said “The BBC really made a satirical show called ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ while the real housewives of ISIS are being raped and abused daily. ” The BBC really made a satirical show called ”The Real Housewives of ISIS” while the real housewives of ISIS are being raped and abused daily, — Meraj. (@UncleMeraj) January 4, 2017, Another wrote, “‘Real Housewives of ISIS’ will make Hijabis feel more isolated n targeted by Islamophobes. Thanks @BBC for adding to the negative stereotype. ” ’Real Housewives of ISIS’ will make Hijabis feel more isolated n targeted by Islamophobes. Thanks @BBC for adding to the negative stereotype, — aѕн (@AshKaneSkittles) January 4, 2017, Leftists also articulated how offended they were that the public broadcaster would dare create such a sketch mocking Islamic State. Some questioned whether the use of taxpayer money via the TV license fee should go toward the funding of the programme. As if people’s TV license in this country is going towards funding the production of a programme called ”the real housewives of ISIS”. Wow, — Cameron Edgar (@CammyyyEdgar) January 4, 2017, The video itself has already been viewed millions of times on Facebook and other social media platforms. The clip shows several women in hijabs talking to each other in a house taking selfies and showing off their suicide belts to each other. One woman even mentions that she hadn’t come from Birmingham “to do this” as she scrubbed the floor of the home. Women joining Islamic State and travelling to Syria to become brides has become a real problem in European countries as the terror group promises young girls a more glamorous lifestyle. In 2014, eight schoolgirls from Bethnal Green travelled to Syria to become brides of Islamic State fighters, all of them under the age of 18.

Clinton Campaign Demands FBI Affirm Trump's Russia Ties With the 2016 election campaign winding down, the Clinton campaign is ratcheting up demands for the FBI to publicly confirm the campaign’s allegations that Republican nominee Donald Trump is secretly in league with Russia. Sen. Harry Reid (D – NV) went so far as to claim the FBI has secret “explosive” evidence of coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russian government that it is withholding. FBI officials familiar with their investigations into the allegations, which the Clinton campaign started publicizing around the Democratic National Convention, say they’ve turned up nothing to connect Trump and Russia , leading FBI Director James Comey to decide against making any statements to that effect. The Clinton campaign has been making the allegations so long that they have taken to claiming “everyone knows” that they are true, and appears unsettled by the FBI’s refusal to sign off on the claims simply because they haven’t been able to find real evidence corroborating the story. The Trump campaign has repeatedly denied ties to Russia, but that didn’t stop Clinton from calling Trump a “puppet” of Russian President Vladimir Putin during the final presidential debate. The calls have grown since Friday’s FBI report to Congress about further Clinton emails being sought. With Clinton’s main campaign scandal growing in the waning weeks of the deal, some in her campaign have suggested that affirming Trump as secretly in league with the Russians would only be fair. Absent any evidence, however, it appears that won’t be happening.

Yes, There Are Paid Government Trolls On Social Media, Blogs, Forums And Websites February 26th, 2014 Do you want solid proof that paid government shills are targeting websites, blogs, forums and social media accounts? For years, many have suspected that government trolls have been systematically causing havoc all over the Internet, but proving it has been difficult. But now thanks to documents leaked by Edward Snowden and revealed by Glenn Greenwald, we finally have hard evidence that western governments have been doing this. As you will see below, a UK intelligence outfit known as the Government Communications Headquarters, through a previously secret unit known as the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group, has been systematically attempting “to control, infiltrate, manipulate, and warp online discourse”. This should be deeply disturbing to anyone that values free speech on the Internet. It isn’t just that the British government is trying to influence what people are thinking. The reality is that this is far bigger than a mere propaganda campaign. As Greenwald recently noted on his new website , the “integrity of the Internet itself” is at stake… By publishing these stories one by one, our NBC reporting highlighted some of the key, discrete revelations: the monitoring of YouTube and Blogger , the targeting of Anonymous with the very same DDoS attacks they accuse “hacktivists” of using, the use of “ honey traps ” (luring people into compromising situations using sex) and destructive viruses . But, here, I want to focus and elaborate on the overarching point revealed by all of these documents: namely, that these agencies are attempting to control, infiltrate, manipulate, and warp online discourse , and in doing so, are compromising the integrity of the internet itself. So what techniques are the British using to control and manipulate discourse on the Internet? According to Greenwald, the documents that Snowden has uncovered show that they are willing to sink to despicable lows in order to get the results that they desire… Among the core self-identified purposes of JTRIG are two tactics: (1) to inject all sorts of false material onto the internet in order to destroy the reputation of its targets; and (2) to use social sciences and other techniques to manipulate online discourse and activism to generate outcomes it considers desirable. To see how extremist these programs are, just consider the tactics they boast of using to achieve those ends: “ false flag operations ” (posting material to the internet and falsely attributing it to someone else), fake victim blog posts (pretending to be a victim of the individual whose reputation they want to destroy), and posting “ negative information ” on various forums. The following is a list of Internet infiltration techniques that were listed on one particular slide that Snowden leaked… – Infiltration Operation – Sting Operation You can check out this slide for yourself right here . There is also evidence that the Canadian government has been involved in this sort of thing as well. Natural News … You’ve probably run into them before — those seemingly random antagonizers who always end up diverting the conversation in an online chat room or article comment section away from the issue at hand, and towards a much different agenda. Hot-button issues like illegal immigration, the two-party political system, the “war on terror” and even alternative medicine are among the most common targets of such attackers, known as internet “trolls” or “shills,” who in many cases are nothing more than paid lackeys hired by the federal government and other international organizations to sway and ultimately control public opinion . Several years ago, Canada’s CTV News aired a short segment about how its own government had been exposed for hiring secret agents to monitor social media and track online conversations, as well as the activities of certain dissenting individuals. This report, which in obvious whitewashing language referred to such activities as the government simply “ weighing in and correcting ” allegedly false information posted online, basically admitted that the Canadian government had assumed the role of secret online police . You can see a video news report about this activity up in Canada right here . Are you disturbed yet? You should be. So what kind of people are the governments of the western world targeting online? Well, when it comes to the U.S. government, all you have to do is to look at their official documents to see who they consider the “problems” to be. For much more on this, please see my previous article entitled “ 72 Types Of Americans That Are Considered ‘Potential Terrorists’ In Official Government Documents “. Sadly, the reality of the matter is that the days of the free and open Internet are numbered. The governments of the world are increasing their control over the Internet with each passing day, and eventually a time will likely come when we will not be able to communicate openly like this any longer. Things have gotten so bad in the U.S. already that even Google is spooked … A recent court decision that endorsed a broad view of the Federal Communications Commission’s authority over the Internet has Google and other Web companies nervous. In closed-door meetings with regulators and Capitol Hill staff, Google’s lawyers have said they’re worried how the FCC may use its newfound powers, according to multiple people familiar with the meetings. The extent of the FCC’s authority over Google and other Web services remains unclear, and the current FCC has given no indication that it is interested in pushing aggressive new regulations. But the possibility that the commission could begin telling Google how to organize its search results or handle its users’ data is enough to spook the company’s army of Washington lobbyists. And this is just the beginning. If you think that the control freaks that are running things now are bad, just wait until you see the next generation of control freaks. For example, there is one prominent student writer at Harvard that apparently believes that free speech at her university should be abolished and that any professor that does not advocate for her politically-correct version of “justice” should be fired … A student writer at Harvard University is raising eyebrows after publishing her belief that free speech on campus should be abolished and professors with opposing views be fired. Sandra Korn, a senior who writes a column for the Harvard Crimson newspaper, thinks radical leftism is the only permissible political philosophy, and the First Amendment only hinders colleges from brainwashing students with her viewpoint. “Let’s give up on academic freedom in favor of justice,” states the subtitle of her Feb. 18 column , in which she insists Harvard stop guaranteeing students and professors the right to hold controversial views and conduct research putting liberalism in a negative light. “If our university community opposes racism, sexism, and heterosexism, why should we put up with research that counters our goals?” Korn asks. This is what control freaks always want. They always want to shut down those that are presenting opposing views. They don’t believe in free speech and a “marketplace of ideas”. Rather, they believe in shoving what they believe down the rest of our throats. And now we have solid proof that the governments of the western world are paying people to manipulate discourse on social media, blogs, forums and websites. So will there be great outrage over this, or will the apathetic public just roll over and ignore this like they have so many other times the past few years? My guess, most will just roll over and ignore this. People don’t care. Hammerstrike At least I know why people disagree with me other dem intrenets now, they are paid trolls! Paid by the governement to spread falsehoods and hurt muh feelins! seth datta Most of my comments get deleted by bankster paid control freaks if they don’t troll my comments. Banksters truly are the psychopaths destroying the world. K The amazing thing is, they are not that hard to spot. But since like so many other things, people will not face the truth. This information will only help a very few. For those of you still sitting on the fence. How much more evidence do you need? How many more ways does the Government have to mess with you? What will it finally take, to say enough? Rodster “Don’t confuse me with the facts. I already made up my mind.” SupernaturalCat “The amazing thing is, they are not that hard to spot. But since like so many other things, people will not face the truth.” Indeed. Never underestimate the power of denial. DJohn1 This is called doing anything for a paycheck. Otherwise known in the world as prostituting for money. Snowden probably has a few other “surprises” in the material he has not released yet. This also dates back to way before the internet was ever thought of. PR firms for the government have been making fun of anything that they truly want to hide. Such as any legitimate UFO reporting over the last 50 or so years. Anyone with a thorough knowledge of Solar System Astronomy was made to feel like a nut as far back as the 50s. One Russian Scientist came up with a fantastic theory of how Venus came to be where it is in the Solar System. In 1949 or 1950 scientists all over the planet wanted his books banned from publication and actually boycotted anyone that would pub his work. His theory said that Venus was extremely hot(800 degrees Fahrenheit). That the planet had a weird rotation. That it possibly came into the Solar System around the time of Joseph of Egypt and 400 years later caused the plagues of Egypt under Moses. That placed it in BIblical times. Well Venus does have a weird day. It is longer than its year. Venus is full of hydrocarbons and carbon dioxide. It has an atmosphere much thicker than the Earth’s. All of which sort of lend credit to the theory. It is volcanic and has a very hot surface. In 1950, astronomers were guessing that Venus was a twin to Earth with a slightly higher temperature. Possibly 150 at the equator and comfortable at the poles. Then the Russian Drones sent to Venus told an entirely different story and blew all of the astronomers out of the water. I hope I am embarrassing them for their efforts to ban the man from publication. He spent his years at Princeton University after leaving Russia. Two aspects of the theory should make us all sit up and listen. He claimed the Hydrocarbons rained oil over the surface of the Earth and that might be where a lot of Earth’s supply of oil came from. The Russians are acting on that theory to find new oil reserves. The second aspect is that Venus played a kind of bounce game as it came down through the Solar System and removed the second planet from the Sun in the process and dumped it out further in the Solar System. He thought that Mars was originally in the orbit where Venus is today. His theory was that mankind forgot what happened in a kind of national amnesia. IF what he says was true, then Mars could have had a thick enough atmosphere and water to support life! More important it might have had a thick magnetic layer that filtered out the Sun and kept the planet temperate at one time. All of which was ruined as Venus dragged it out of orbit. That might have happened in biblical times. The Earth might have been slightly closer to the Sun with a 360 day year instead of 365 and a quarter day year. This of course is all speculation until we go out there and find out the real truth of what is going on. My own guess is that if there is life on Mars it is in caves under the surface with a slightly heavier atmosphere and possibly seas in these huge caverns. If there is any surface life left, it is likely to be about the size of a dog or a racoon. If there is large life, I suspect it will be Sand Worms deep in the sands of Mars. I mention this because it is very easy to ridicule ideas. The one I just told you about actually happened in the 50s and was ridiculed coast to coast by actual scientists. We are in a universe with over 100 billion galaxies out there. The number of stars with life possible is at a fantastic number. If one in a million stars has life, that is still a whole lot of life out there. The only explanation that makes sense to me is we are far off the trade lanes between the stars. Otherwise we would have been contacted years ago. Or have we been? I suggest that when a civilization reaches the level of using Atomic Bombs then that civilization bares watching. We had a lot of UFO activity after World War II and the setting off of bombs all over the planet as governments tested these weapons. Governments all over the world that are big enough are probably hiding a lot of things from all of us. I think we might all be amazed at just exactly what has been withheld. NowAlive This is quite a postulation on the mere evidence that was correct, namely the temperature of Venus. The plagues of Egypt were localized. You had firstborns killed unless you used a passover lamb. Second, what about the oils raining down all over the Earth? I was quite young when Valdez crashed. The oil rig explosion in the Gulf is more recent. The hydrocarbon dumping would have killed off most life on the planet. Basically my point is that observational science shows that virtually none of what you just stated has been proven or even has any legitimate evidence. It’s wild speculation. I’m not an astrophysicist, but I doubt you are either. The governments hiding things is obvious. This in no way shows life on Mars or Venus dumping oil or switching orbital positions. It does not even slightly point to alien visitations or life. I’m not trying to offend you. I’m just trying to understand what you just said in a way that shows there is some evidence for it. DJohn1 You are quite right. It is wild speculation on my part. Except the temperature is not the only evidence. Venus rotates the wrong direction in its spin or day. It is the only planet in the entire solar system to do so. The day is 268 of our days long. The year is 222 of our days. That the temperatures are so high could just be the closeness to the Sun. The atmosphere is 15 times thicker than our planet’s atmosphere. That speaks to me that something unusual is going on. As for the oil, it is showing up in places that only a rain of oil might explain. The critical thing that we do not know is When it occurred or if it occurred at all. If I am right, there is a good possibility that the Moon will have some fairly large deposits of oil under the surface. There is a lot of unexplained discoloration on face of the Moon. If there is oil under the surface of the Moon, it might also mean that the Moon was a small planet at one time with an atmosphere and life. Again, I am speculating. The theory did not come from astrophysics. It came from examining a lot of stories all over the planet from the approximate time of Moses. That was Velinkovsky’s specialty, ancient languages and psychology of ancient cultures. Rastus A field of study that you may or may not have heard of is called “catastrophism”. Not without its critics and highly controversial among biblical scholars, you may find the subject a good scratch to your itch. A book by Donald Wesley Patten called “Catastrophism And The Old Testament” might be in accordance with your fancy. Johnny Are you speaking of Immanuel Velikovsky? He is the Author of Worlds in Collision. He points out the chaos of the universe. I found him interesting to read in 1958. DJohn1 Yes. He was not a specialist in astronomy. He simply pointed out what the beliefs of the ancient world were. He did upset the scientific world of his time. I think he was at least 50% right about things. We now know that Venus could not have come from Jupiter or Saturn. My own thought is that it had to come from the outer solar system or beyond. We have well over 100 moons around the planets. Most of which are around the gas giants. Most of which have a nickel/iron core. None of which could have come from the major gas giants in the Solar System. They had to come from something much more dense and much older. The man most likely to shake the core beliefs of astrophysics and astronomy is an accomplished astronomer, Dr. Mike Brown. What he is finding is there are a series of small, Pluto sized planets, some with small moons in the outer solar system. Scientists have been looking in the wrong place. Of the four new planets he has found, they seem to be 40-50 degrees off the orbits of the gas giants. Some are in extremely comet like orbits and at least one is on its way out of the Solar System. I am no scientist. A lot of what I read about it makes little sense with current theories. Unless there is something out there that is big enough to drag small planets and moons out of their original orbits around the Sun. Some think we have a brown dwarf about a light year out at the edge of the Sun’s influence(gravity). So far no one has found it. I think we are looking in the wrong places. IF there is a brown dwarf, it is quite small as stars go. IF it is in a comet-like orbit, then somewhere down the road it will return causing all kinds of changes in the Solar System. IF it has planets around it, then those planets might cause a lot of destruction as they come close to existing planets and moons in our solar system. Our planets as viewed from the North and top of the Solar System rotate around the Sun counter-clockwise. IF this brown dwarf is rotating clockwise around the Sun, that might complicate finding and plotting an orbit for it. IF it is way off the angle that most planets orbit the Sun, that might also keep it from being discovered. I do find it interesting that a lot of astronomy telescopes are moving towards the South Pole for observations. Known Brown Dwarf Stars do exist around stars in our stellar neighborhood and some are independent of any other stars all within about 12 light years of our Sun. A lot of what we do know is kept fairly low key and doesn’t really get a lot of news headlines. How many people know about Dr. Brown’s work in the outer solar system? How many know about the gap(hole) in the orbits of the ORB cloud? A gap big enough for something the size of Venus or much larger could have made in the outer asteroid belt. I think it is possible that an object possibly the size of a gas giant might be out there somewhere but so little light is coming from it that we will only discover it by accident. What is significant is we are still learning about new planets in our own solar system. The governments have spent enormous amounts of money in this area through NASA. So someone must think we have things out there we need to know. GrimReaperLady I found your reply facinating! There is no way we are the only planet with life. I think I am going to go read some scientific journals, any suggestions. jaxon64 Awesome distraction technique…you turned a discussion of govt media control and trolling into a lengthy discussion of planetary formation?…truly masterful. You deserve a raise. DJohn1 Thank you. Just for the record, I have no salary from the U.S. Government for trolling. The only funds from them I see is my monthly Social Security Check as someone that has retired. Not sure how long that lasts before they steal what they haven’t all ready spent out of the general fund. The true masters are the PR people hired to keep the sheep all sleeping peacefully while the government steals everything in sight. I started getting suspicious about 20 years ago, when the entire newspaper business stopped mud raking and went with bland stories handed out by the wire services. It appears stirring up things has legal penalties and newspapers do not want to get hung up in legal battles. So they run news from wire services and leave the real reporting to others. Making advertisers angry has financial penalties as well, so lord help the reporter that angers an advertiser. Everything is wrapped up in money motivations. That above anything else is what has destroyed the country’s estate that used to bring down the crooked politicians. The only way this related to planetary formation is that this media was used to go against this man by scientists that were angry at his claims. These scientists literally boycotted the publishers willing to pub his work. My own thought is that controling the scientific discovery press is just as bad. Jonathon von Tischner A good video on that is “Return of the Nephilim” by Chuck Missler. DJohn1 Immanuel Velikovsky wrote the book in question. Worlds in Collision was the title. He was wrong about a lot of things. For instance I do not think it is possible to have Venus come out of Jupiter. The elements are different. Venus has a heavy core vs Jupiter has a Hydrogen and Helium core. What he did get right was a lot of facts about what Venus actually consisted of. My own idea is Venus might have been a wondering planet not orbiting any Star. I mentioned this man because by coincidence he did get a lot of things right. His ideas should not have been debunked or censored in any way. How was Venus created? I think it might have come from Brown Dwarf that was coming apart at the seams. That would make it a whole lot older than Velinkovsky thought. The idea is Brown Dwarfs might have a lot of heavy materials on them than regular stars and gas planets. We have an entire solar system full of heavy objects like that. We also have at least 4 gas giants that consist mostly of hydrogen and helium. The question is where did all of those heavy material objects consisting of nickel/iron cores come from? That is a question that most astronomy scientists do not have a good answer yet. 2¢Wurth Wow, less than two sentences into the article and the icon of Gary2 started appearing on the left and right sides of the screen. I used to think of a troll as a small ugly creature, now I think of this perverted looking plastic muppet who barks out this “take from the rich, give to me” mantra. Must be very weird living in that world… Chris Yes the Purple colored Cookie Monster from Sesame Street! seth Half my comments get deleted or trolled outright. There is little to no freedom of speech in the West. Heck, other countries are the lands of the free, relatively speaking. blackciti_fo5 So they’re doing with the internet what has already been done to television basically? Great. Just great. Eric Blair Those who propose that only one perspective is viable and that all competing viewpoints should be abolished by decree are the worst trolls of all, no matter what ideals they hold up to justify their actions. America was founded on the idea of freedom, and primarily freedom of speech and ideas. Any who would seek to deter that freedom are as tumors on the political body of this country, and as such should be excised lest their disease continue to spread. Goebbels and Bernays would be proud of such people, but they have no place in a truly free country. Nicholas Mull yes brotherjohnf We have been telling people this for years as we have battled these trolls for more than a decade. People just refuse to believe it. Sad. Syrin Anyone reading my unrelenting attacks on GARY at Michael’s other web site knows that I believe without a doubt he is a paid disinformation gov’t agent. NO ONE can read the facts that Michael presents, and logically reach the conclusions he does when faced with pages of data and facts unless they are brain dead or have an agenda. He might have both. Guest LOL. I don’t think Gary is a disinformation agent. I think he’s just an angry man who feels that he’s owed something. But that’s just my opinion. jaxon64 agreed…now gay vet may actually be a troll. Gary at least discusses the issues,-albeit from his redundant and close-minded viewpoints which are inalterable by facts—yet gay vet and a few others are always trying to distract from the topic and turn any intelligent discourse in the comments section into a name calling and Repub vs Democrat discussion. His very name was probably chosen to distract from article content. Another tactic I see from some here consistently is that if anyone mentions any faith, or God or just finishes a post with “God help us”…then trolls who never post anything else will pounce in and start attacking God—I think the true motive is to turn the conversation toward one of atheism/religion/creation instead of the topic of the article… You see it from the same people over and over–then they disappear and someone new with a different moniker will take their place ( quite possibly the same shill but different name.) All said, they are very effective at distraction if one reads through the comments, they often take over an entire article and it never gets back on topic. Gay Veteran speak of trolls and jaxon64 pops up. “…yet gay vet and a few others are always trying to distract from the topic and turn any intelligent discourse in the comments section into a name calling and Repub vs Democrat discussion… hey Einstein, get a clue, there is no differences between the 2 parties …His very name was probably chosen to distract from article content….” I’ll choose my own name, j-hole. “…Another tactic I see from some here consistently is that if anyone mentions any faith, or God or just finishes a post with “God help us”…then trolls who never post anything else will pounce in and start attacking God…” OR you post something incredibly stoopid and get hammered for it FirstGarden You know a tree by its fruit. Veteranforpeace Some folks take pride in being prime slime. They’re so desperate for attention that any kind would be better than none. Veteranforpeace They’ll do it for buck too, Paid prime time slime. Facts seldom stand in the way of what someone wants to believe English Kev I think Gary has genitalia dimension disorder. Syrin Michael, I actually believe the gov’t push to take over the internet will HELP America. Why? because most Americans are fat, lazy brain dead zombies who let Jon Stewart do their thinking for them. They’re intellectual sloths and are 100% unaware of the noose being placed around their neck. HOWEVER, they are internet addicts, and take away an addicts fix, and he/she will react potentially violently. It might just shake enough people from their stupor to effect meaningful change. FirstGarden How dare you speak my mind? :-) Media-mesmerized couch potatoes. Derp So basically, what you’re saying is that the only way to save the internet (and all that it represents) is to destroy it? Apple Cider Your beliefs step on the rights of free citizens and we are not here to serve your needs. Please stick your head in a bucket of water and drown yourself. Gay Veteran you’ll get more truth from Jon Stewart than from the corporate media (including Fox) rkb100100 Public sector employee unions troll everything. FirstGarden The New “Free Speech”– no speech tolerated but their own. (If you disagree, you’re automatically a hater and a phobe.) The New “Diversity”– Everyone except veterans and white males in their 50s. The New “Constituency”– Left wing voting blocks (Formed by tax incentives to corporations for target hiring; promotion of welfare vs. workfare.) Rastus Their father is the “father of lies” FirstGarden Aye, but he is an equal-opportunity father, with children in many a camp. Derp Freedom of Speech means that you have the freedom to speak your mind. That doesn’t mean that what you say is automatically correct or true. FirstGarden You’re correct. Unfortunately, Statism does not tolerate free speech, dissent, nor true diversity. Joey D’Fixer I dont know why they even bother anyway. Its not like this garbage works and they are so easy to spot. For instance, on YT, they are always a dead give away, as for 95% of the time, they use a First and Last name, which from what i can tell, is autogenerated through some script they use. I had seen in a video, the FedBizOpps site putting out a contract for a system to make multiple IDs for use in some Social Media program. If i recall, it was the Air Force or something like that. Operation Earnest Voice was another one as well. But they basically log in through some front-end of sorts, and they dont actually use YT like we do. The profiles are ALWAYS empty: no dates, no vids, no likes, no uploads, no playlists, nothing on the ‘About’ section. Its all pure vapor. And Cass Sunstein was the one who recommended all this in his paper, calling it ‘cognitive infiltration’, and who is another Dr Goebbels wanna-be and who should be hung from a tree. And its not like they are ‘going to change our minds’ on anything. Troll or no troll, if i dont like what youre saying to me, i have 3 words for you ‘Go F yourself.’ This is what actually enrages me more than anything, that they feel everyone but themselves, are going to be that malleable, zombified and sloth-like, to just believe everything they spew. If its one thing i hate, its people with superiority complexes, they are just a total scourge on the planet and its mindset of every control-freak authoritarian out there, past, present and future. Randall Thrift The illusion of privacy is just that, AN ILLUSION. My granddaddy always taught me that once an idea, thought, or opinion leaves you mind it is no longer private and you no longer should have any expectations of privacy. In today’s world of the high tech social media this truth is more evident than ever. GrimReaperLady Wow that is scary, this my last post until I think this through. Captain Canuck Yeah if you guys are worried about Obama’s NSA, then you wouldn’t believe Prime Minister Harper. He’s diabolical. He’s managed to remove or control most press and cameras from Parlaiment Hill. This is huge, as media used to have access and reporters had a presence at the capital. He’s also managed to muzzle ANYONE who comes out and questions the Big Oil agenda. c p Corrupt governments hate free speech, and ours will be gone for good with the next major terrorist attack or natural disaster. Then the internet will be every bit as dumbed down as the broadcast media. Blitzkrieg Oh Gay Veteran… Paging Gay Veteran. Blitzkrieg …and Gary — if they’re not already the same person. Gay Veteran sorry junior but I detest our fascist government Charles Reece By the way, since Britain and America are BOTH English-speaking countries – and the closest of allies, along with France; that therefore, England is ALREADY “in league” with whatever almost EVERTHING that the U.S. does in the first place, AND therefore, given Edward Snowden’s revelations of the U.S. Government’s intelligence apparatus “spying” on its own citizens; that accordingly, why not EXPECT Britain to do the “same” – to not only their OWN people, but also ours as well, anyway. And besides, truly, during the 1960’s, the English-speaking countries; such as England itself, and Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have already been SHARING “signals-intelligence” information – or electronic “eavesdropping” information – with each other and with Uncle Sam; through the ECHELON electronic eavesdropping network; which was set up back in 1964. By each member nation of ECHELON electronically spying on each other’s respective private citizens – and passing on intelligence-gathered information to the OTHER member nations; that consequently, each member nation could actually CIRCUMVENT their own respective government’s laws PROHIBITING ECHELON from “spying” on its OWN country’s citizens. They’ve been doing this ever since ECHELON was “set up” back in ’64. But very few Americans have already known about what’s been “going on” all of these past five decades; that being, with ECHELON members permitting each other to electronically “spy” and “share” intelligence information dealing with each other’s country’s citizens. Thus, by ONE member nation allowing ANOTHER one to gather information on its own citizens – and sharing that same “information” with the others; that consequently, each member nation COULD NOT legally be “accused” of violating its own respective government’s laws prohibiting domestic spying. BART SIMPSONSON Hey, it’s just another means of getting the prog’s agitprop out there and countering any notion of Free Speech on the internet. In case you haven’t noticed they also pretty much have the non-Fox TV news networks, channels, and programs fellating them daily……. James It’s not really a surprise tho is it? And I don’t think it’s a Lib vs Dem thing, I imagine most governments do it. And it’s not just governments either. Big business is up to exactly the same thing. Big pharma, oil companies spreading disinformation about climate change. Sad times we live in really, difficult to know who to trust on the Internet these days. We all seek out the stories and opinions that support our view on the world. ButIDigress In any society, most people do nothing. It’s up to the minority to defend the naive majority. It’s how things are done. Bob G If I read the article correctly the government is targeting conservative thought. I always wondered why liberals would deliberately read conservative web sites and then harass the commentators. I certainly have no wish to read liberal web sites let alone comment on them. It all makes sense now. OGIS The DNC is behind a lot of this. False flag operations to make “conservative” posters sound ignorant, stupid and racist. (Not to say that there are not elements of that in many conservatives AND liberals, but these j@ck@sses ramp it up to 11.) Tami Chapman I almost posted this until you mentioned the Harvard Student’s article, which was taken totally out of context. Great article until the very end when you very sneakily try to place all of the blame on liberals when we all know the the real villains completely control both parties, especially the conservatives. It’s Independents like Sanders who will fight for our rights…people who are not bought by the power elite.

Guillermo Barros Schelotto was not the first Argentine player to set foot on a Major League Soccer field. Statistically speaking, he was the 28th when he made his debut for the Columbus Crew in 2007. But Schelotto’s phone still rings to this day, more than six years after he left the league, with calls from fellow Argentines looking for advice. Though Schelotto, 43, is currently the coach of Boca Juniors, the most decorated team in Argentina, most of the players who call him want to talk about other teams, about other countries, about a soccer world away from the environment of Buenos Aires. “Most of them like to talk about the cities,” Schelotto said. Many of them find a way to come. Argentines now make up the demographic in M. L. S. trailing only Americans. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, going into this season’s openers, 98 Argentine players had been featured in an M. L. S. game since the league’s inception. Sebastian Blanco, a new designated player for Portland, made his debut in an opener Friday and became No. 99. In a ranking by nationality, Argentines have the goal total, too. Twelve of the 22 teams in M. L. S. will start the season with at least one Argentine on their roster, a list that includes stars like Dallas’s Mauro Diaz and Montreal’s Ignacio Piatti and newcomers like Atlanta’s Hector Villalba and New York City F. C.’s Maxi Moralez. Why do they come? For some it’s the money, or at least the promise that it will be paid regularly. Others come for the lifestyle, the chance to fade into a comparative anonymity unavailable to them at home, or to live the “quiet, clean” life that Schelotto describes as he reminisces about his days in Ohio. The Portland Timbers playmaker Diego Valeri was one such player who called Schelotto, his former manager, and he eventually heeded his advice. But he said it was for an entirely different reason. A year before he signed with Portland, while under contract to his hometown club Lanus, Valeri had had a gun pressed to his throat when robbers attempted to steal his BMW with his wife, Florencia, and daughter, Connie, inside. “After that moment,” Valeri said with considerable understatement, “we thought about opportunities to play outside and know different places in the world. ” Within a year, Valeri, who had had loan spells in Portugal and Spain, was on his way to Portland. “Situations like that are very hard for the Argentinian people to change,” he said. The Valeri and his family are now settled in the Northwest, where he is playing arguably the best soccer of his career. He is a and in between was named the most valuable player when Portland won the 2015 M. L. S. Cup championship game. “I think they like the anonymity and the tranquillity here,” Caleb Porter, Valeri’s coach with the Timbers, said of his star and his countrymen. “They really relish the opportunity to be here and to live a lifestyle that’s different to how they lived in Argentina. They transition well into M. L. S. ” Since 2011, Portland has signed six Argentines, including its acquisition of Blanco, 28. Valeri has been a good ambassador — he speaks English and urges newcomers to try to learn it as soon as possible, to ease the transition. But Porter and the Timbers’ general manager and president of soccer, Gavin Wilkinson, believe there is another, more straightforward reason for Argentina’s outsize presence in M. L. S.: It simply produces the kind of technical player that the league desires. “Certain countries produce certain positions more,” Porter said. “Most teams are looking for that creative piece, and you know you can get one in Argentina. ” A large alumni directory and strong ties to agents and consultants in the region have made that kind of shopping easier for M. L. S. teams, and in the past the struggles of the Argentine economy also favored North American clubs, some said. But there also has been a change in the kind of individual looking to make the move north, and that has dovetailed with the league’s overall transfer policy. As the quality of M. L. S. has improved as it enters its third decade, its teams have looked less for marketability from its imports — which in the past had trended toward aging, often European stars — and more toward onfield impact and value. The latest class of Argentines reflects this shift, as they enter a league where the average age of designated players — the team’s stars — has fallen below 28, its lowest point in a decade. “They know that M. L. S. is different to 10 years ago,” said Schelotto, who was 34 when he moved to the league. “They can go, make good money, play with some pressure. They know they can make a career in the United States and then maybe move to Europe. “Ten years ago, it was impossible. Right now, you can. ” There are currently 24 Argentines playing in the league. Atlanta United and its Argentine coach, Tata Martino, brought in three ahead of its first season, each of them 25 or younger (Villalba is just 22). Buying young is now seen as more of a benefit to clubs than a risk, as players who continue to develop retain a value if they move on to brighter prospects in Europe. “People are coming here younger and younger, maybe to start their careers,” Ignacio Piatti, a playmaker for the Montreal Impact, said through an interpreter. “It’s what they are looking for at that age: being able to live a comfortable life off the field and focus on their games. ” Piatti, like Schelotto, has been happy to offer advice to the next wave of Argentine talents considering entering M. L. S. including players on both sides of the Hudson River. Gonzalo Veron, 27, of the Red Bulls, and Moralez, 30, who recently signed with New York City F. C. both acknowledged that they had turned to Piatti for advice before signing. At a community event in East Harlem last week, Moralez — who spent four years in Italy — reflected on his decision to move to the United States. He had never been to New York City before signing, he said, and after turning to the likes of Piatti and David Villa for advice about the league’s standard of play, he said he also sought assurances for his family, who are set to join him in New York shortly. “First off, I just want to enjoy football,” Moralez said. “But also to get to know the beauty of the city and the country. Not everybody gets the opportunity to come here. ”

A Caddo Nation tribal leader has just been freed after spending two days behind bars in North Dakota. Family members say she was simply an innocent bystander in a clash between police and protesters, and was not guilty of anything the police claimed. Via AlternativeNews Jessi Mitchell, of local News 9 reports that “family members of Caddo Nation chairwoman Tamara Francis-Fourkiller said an anonymous donor paid $2.5 million late Saturday afternoon to release everyone arrested on Thursday at the Dakota Access Pipeline site.” They added, however, that Francis-Fourkiller was never supposed to have been arrested in the first place. “An expert on sacred burial grounds , Francis-Fourkiller was one of the tribal leaders visiting the Sioux of Standing Rock to advise them during negotiations with the Dakota Access Pipeline construction team,” Mitchell continues. “Remains were being desecrated in this pipeline, so they had asked a bunch of people to come up there, so there’s a big conference,” Francis-Fourkiller’s sister Loretta Francis explained. On the visit , Francis said her sister and other leaders decided to tour the protest camps. They never thought they would wind up in jail. Francis said her sister had no access to her medication while in custody in Cass County, North Dakota, and now faces charges of conspiracy and rioting. “Part of my family was removed on the Trail of Tears and they came here to Oklahoma and they suffered,” said Francis. “I always feel like each generation – our parents, our grandparents – try to make it better for the next generation and they certainly didn’t want this for my sister.” Dozens of Native Americans from Oklahoma tribes had gathered Saturday afternoon at the state Capitol, according to Mitchell, with the purpose of voicing their “anger at the treatment of the protesters in North Dakota, pointing out this week’s acquittal of armed protesters at an Oregon wildlife refuge earlier this year.” “We’re not holding guns. We’re not armed, and when we see the military right here in the US use that on us, it’s shameful,” Comanche Nation tribal council member Sonya Nevaquaya explained. One of the fundamentals of all Native American tribes is the protection of the land. Chanting “Water is life!” Saturday, the Oklahoma demonstrators hope to rally people from around the country to stand with those in North Dakota and stop construction on the pipeline project. “These pipelines, you hear of a lot of bursts and leaks and it contaminating the waters. What happens when all of our waters and resources are gone?” Nevaquaya explained. Francis-Fourkiller says she will be traveling back to her home in Norman as soon as possible.

Wednesday after Donald Trump’s press conference at Trump Tower in New York City, NBC “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd expressed his exasperation over the normalcy of what he called a “circus” surrounding Trump’s event. “I was struck big picture wise which is of how normal a circus is now to us,” Todd said. “This was a circus. We’ve never seen a a transition like we saw today where the press conference gets interrupted, you have a lawyer in here. The lawyer does half legal talk, half political spin. I’ve never seen that, using the lawyer to say he’s here to make America great again, and by the way I’m going to play constitutional lawyer. I don’t think this but clearly a constitutional lawyer told us we better not accept any of this money. So they made that exception. So I am struck at how normal crazy looked to us today. This was just a crazy scene, but this is the norm of Donald Trump. And in fact, this is where he’s most comfortable. And I will say this. just as a political show. if you’re Donald Trump, you want these press conferences because it made the press look disjointed, unorganized, all this stuff. And his people, you know, he just, it was a performance for his supporters and his people. ” Later in the segment, Todd decried what he saw as elements within the intelligence community being at odds with one another, then called a story put out by BuzzFeed a night earlier suggesting Trump had ties to Russia to be a “political favor. ” “Look, let’s be honest here,” Todd said. “Politically BuzzFeed did Donald Trump a political favor today by doing what they did by going ahead and making it all public because it allowed them to deny a specific without having to deal with the bigger picture. ” Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor

Screenwriter Ryan Murphy, who has produced the FX series American Crime Story, is set to bring the Monica Clinton White House sex saga to TV. [According to the Hollywood Reporter, the Ryan Murphy Productions chief has optioned author and CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Tobin’s 2000 book A Vast Conspiracy: The Real Sex Scandal That Nearly Brought Down a President. The New York Times bestseller, acquired by Fox 21 Television Studios and FX Productions, will become the basis for a future American Crime Story season. In February, Murphy told E! News that the series would explore the Lewinsky sex scandal as “ ” plot to “tear down” President Bill Clinton, and on “the other women” who were ensnared in the 1996 sex scandal, involving House intern Monica Lewinsky, and the events that led to Clinton’s impeachment. “It’s not really about Hillary Clinton. That book is about the rise of a certain segment of a group of people who despised the Clintons and used three women, Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky and Linda Tripp to try and tear him down,” Murphy said. In February, Murphy announced that actress Sarah Paulson — who starred in the first season of his crime drama, The People vs. O. J. Simpson — has been confirmed for a role, but ruled out that it would be of Lady Hillary Clinton. The mogul has reportedly confirmed that his studio is looking actresses to portray Lewinsky and Tripp. Season two of the Golden Globe and Primetime Emmy show will tackle Hurricane Katrina, and is set to premier in 2018. Season three, he confirmed will focus on the 1997 assassination of Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace, singer Ricky Martin has already joined the cast. Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @JeromeEHudson

Massachusetts Cop’s Wife Busted for Pinning Fake Home-Invasion Robbery on Black Lives Matter Source: PINAC The wife of a Massachusetts cop is facing charges for filing a false police report after she concocted a story about thieves ransacking her home, stealing $10,000 in jewelry and then spray-painting her house with Black Lives Matter to pin it on black people. Maria Daly, wife of Millbury K-9 cop Daniel Daly, took to social media about her dreamt-up victimization after she filed a police report on October 17. “We woke up to not only our house being robbed while we were sleeping, but to see this hatred for no reason,” she posted, according to the Boston Herald. “ If you would of [sic] asked me yesterday about this blue lives and black lives matter issue my response would of [sic] been very positive [sic],” the now private Facebook account alleged. “Today on the other hand I have so much anger and hate that I don’t like myself. This is what we have to deal with these days and it makes me sick that this is what was on the side of my house.” Maria Daly called police to report someone had robbed her home while she was sleeping and then spray-painted her home with BLM for Black Lives Matter then posted about it on social media. Millbury Police Chief Donald Desourcy told the Herald that Daly called police to report an early morning break-in October 17, claiming someone had made off with thousands of dollars worth of valuables and spray-painting “BLM” on the outside of her house. But Chief Desourcy stated that as the investigation unfolded, something didn’t feel “quite right” and Daly ended up admitting she fabricated the whole thing, telling the officers her valuables had already been recovered. “It was pretty obvious. The officers did their due diligence and followed through with the investigation that we had,” he told CBS Boston . “We came to the conclusion it was all fabricated. There was no intruder, there was no burglary.” The chief said the hoax was likely motivated by the couple’s financial troubles and that he has empathy for the family. “I’m very familiar with her and it’s an unfortunate set of circumstances that have taken place.” Daly’s neighbors said it wasn’t a very smart thing to do for a woman who is married to a cop. “She must have tagged the place herself,” said one neighbor. “I don’t know why you’d do that, if you’re gonna stage a robbery, I mean really come on, you’re a cop’s wife. You should know better.” In addition to charges for filing a false police report, Daly also faces a charge for misleading a police investigation. Her cases will be heard at Worcester District Court after she is summoned. Daly’s husband, Daniel Daly was not involved or charged in relation to the hoax, according to police. Share This Article...

Email In an historic move the United Nations First Committee voted Thursday to convene a conference next March to negotiate a new treaty to ban the possession of nuclear weapons. The vote is a huge step forward in the campaign to rid the world of nuclear weapons launched several years ago by nonnuclear weapons states and civil society from across the globe. Dismayed by the failure of the nuclear weapons states to honor their obligation under Article VI of the Non Proliferation Treaty which requires them to pursue good faith negotiations for the elimination of their nuclear arsenals, and moved by the growing danger of nuclear war, more than 120 nations gathered in Oslo in March of 2013 to review the latest scientific data about the catastrophic consequences that will result from the use of nuclear weapons. The conference shifted the focus of international discussion about nuclear war from abstract consideration of nuclear strategy to an evaluation of the medical data about what will actually happen if these weapons are used. It was boycotted by all of the major nuclear powers, the US, Russia, UK, China and France, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, or P5. Further meetings in Nayarit, Mexico and Vienna followed in 2014 and culminated in a pledge by the Austrian government to “close the gap” in international law that does not yet specifically outlaw the possession of these weapons. More than 140 countries ultimately associated themselves with the pledge which was fiercely opposed by the United States and the other nuclear weapons states, and in the fall of 2015 the UN General Assembly voted to establish an Open Ended Working Group which met in Geneva earlier this year and recommended the negotiations approved Thursday. The United States, which led the opposition had hoped to limit the “Yes” vote to less than one hundred, but failed badly. The final vote was 123 For, 38 Against and 16 Abstentions. The “No” votes came from the nuclear weapons states, and US allies in NATO, plus Japan, South Korea and Australia which have treaty ties to the US and consider themselves to be under the protection of the “US nuclear umbrella”. But four nuclear weapons states broke ranks, with China, India and Pakistan abstaining, and North Korea voting in favor of the treaty negotiations. In addition, the Netherlands defied intense pressure from the rest of NATO and abstained, as did Finland, which is not a member of NATO but has close ties with the alliance. Japan which voted with the US against the treaty has indicated that it will, nonetheless, participate in the negotiations when they begin in March. The US and the other nuclear weapons states will probably try to block final approval of the treaty conference by the General Assembly later this fall, but, following Thursday’s vote, it appears overwhelmingly likely that negotiations will begin in March, and that they will involve a significant majority of UN member states, even if the nuclear states continue their boycott. The successful completion of a new treaty will not of itself eliminate nuclear weapons. But it will put powerful new pressure on the nuclear weapons states who clearly do not want to uphold their obligations under the Non Proliferation Treaty even as they insist that the nonnuclear weapons states meet theirs. We have come perilously close to nuclear war on multiple occasions during the last 70 years, and we have been incredibly lucky. US nuclear policy cannot continue to be the hope that we will remain lucky in the future. We need to join and lead the growing movement to abolish nuclear weapons and work to bring the other nuclear weapons states into a binding agreement that sets out the detailed time line for eliminating these weapons and the detailed verification and enforcement mechanisms to make sure they are eliminated. This will not be an easy task, but we really have no choice. If we don’t get rid of these weapons, someday, perhaps sooner rather than later, they will be used and they will destroy human civilization. The decision is ours. Ira Helfand , MD, is past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility and is currently co-president of that group’s global federation, the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, recipient of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize. Join the debate on Facebook Ira Helfand MD practices internal medicine at an urgent care center in Springfield, MA. He is a Past President of Physicians for Social Responsibility and is currently the Co-President of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War , the 1985 Nobel Peace Laureate.

JERUSALEM — Islamic State sympathizers and militants celebrated last night’s deadly terrorist massacre at a crowded concert in Manchester, England, with the jihadists vowing to continue the onslaught against the West. [The Islamic State claimed that a “soldier of the caliphate planted bombs in the middle of Crusaders gatherings,” apparently taking credit for the carnage. Breitbart Jerusalem obtained access to correspondence posted in a closed chat group that utilizes the encrypted Telegram messaging service. The chat group serves as an internal Twitter of sorts for IS jihadists and sympathizers, and it has been used in the past to issue IS communications. A militant named Abu Ayman Alalmani (the German) wrote, “Thanks to Allah who allowed this achievement of the Mujahedeen. We are all believers in Allah that our brothers, the supporters and the Mujahedeen, are those who committed the attack among the infidels. We swear to Allah that the infidel countries in the West won’t have the luxury of security. This is a Godly promise and this is the promise of the Mujahedeen, the future will prove to you that you are the countries of heresy. You will see this and not only hear it. ” An account titled “Muslim Justice” wrote, “Allah is great, Allah is great, we will shake the infidel and criminal regimes. We will destroy the rule of those who abandon Islam [a reference to Arab leaders]. Allah is great, this is a call that will rise high on the horizon and we will yet defeat the cross and the countries of infidels. ” ISIS member Abu Abdullah Alsury (the Syrian) wrote, “Thanks to Allah who caused the faithful to rejoice, we ask and request of Allah that this blessed act will be part of the battle of our brothers, the lone wolves roaming across all parts of the infidel nations, as they seek this type of blessed attack. This is part of the work and this is part of the revenge. Those infidel states will pay a heavy price. ” Prior to the Islamic State claiming credit for the attack, another militant, Alqaqaa Alidlebi from Idlib, wrote, “We’re waiting for our brothers in the official media department to publish what should warm our hearts with an official declaration of responsibility, even if this isn’t an organized act. ” “We pray to Allah that the attacker is a faithful Muslim. You aren’t aware of the huge happiness here in the ranks of the Mujahedeen and their families in the district of Elkheir (the area of Dir Azzur on the border between Syria and Iraq). How happy we are that Allah guided the hand of the attacker to send the heads of the corrupt infidels who murder the Muslims in our countries flying. ” Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio. ” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook. Ali Waked is the Arab affairs correspondent for Breitbart Jerusalem.

Humiliated Hillary Tries To Hide What Camera Caught 15 Mins Before Rally Posted on October 27, 2016 by Amanda Shea in Politics Share This Hillary Clinton outside rally (left), Fox News catching incident on live feed (right) Both presidential candidates stopped in the battleground state of Florida this week to campaign for votes to crowds at separate locations. However, things didn’t go so well for Hillary Clinton, who was humiliated when a camera caught what she immediately tried to hide to save her campaign — which backfired big time. While Donald Trump’s 15,000-person army of “Deplorables” were holding down the fort in Stanford, Florida as they listened to this great leader explain how he plans to make America great again, Hillary was at a much smaller venue at Palm Beach State College. Although she was feeling pretty good about herself with having a higher turnout than she’s used to, the approximate 1,000 to 2,000 attendees paled in comparison to what Trump was looking at in the same state. However, Hillary’s anemic crowd was enough to be publicly mocked in front of. Perhaps Hillary didn’t think anyone would notice, but Fox Business Network was watching — and commenting — live. With just fifteen minutes before the Democratic candidate was set to take the stage in one of her final and most important rallies, the small room should have been jam-packed with people. As the humored hosts noted on the news show, that was far from the case. “Here it is nowhere near the size of the crowd we saw in Sanford, Florida yesterday for Mr. Trump, 15,000. There’s maybe a thousand to two thousand people here today,” one host pointed out much to Hillary’s embarrassment. “The Clinton rallies tend to be much smaller and you can see there’s empty space here and she’s supposed to speak in 15 minutes. And I can tell you that as the camera pans across that if we were at a Trump rally this would absolutely be packed,” the commentators added. No matter how far ahead in the polls Hillary and her lapdog media says she is, the attendance at her events speaks volumes. Nobody cares or is enthusiastic enough about this woman to bother showing up, and those who do have to be coached on how to chant and act excited. On the other hand, there are Trump’s rallies, where so many people turn up to venues four times the size as Hillary’s that these massive stadiums can’t contain everyone who is eager to come, and some are turned away. If the turnout at the rallies is any indicator of what’s expected at the polls, Hillary can’t win, and if she does, Americans should definitely question how that could even happen

Hillary Clinton sat in the hideaway study off her ceremonial office in the State Department, sipping tea and taking stock of her first year on the job. The study was more like a den — cozy and lined with bookshelves that displayed mementos from Clinton’s three decades in the public eye: a statue of her heroine, Eleanor Roosevelt a baseball signed by the Chicago Cubs star Ernie Banks a carved wooden figure of a pregnant African woman. The intimate setting lent itself to a interview than the usual locale, her imposing outer office, with its marble fireplace, heavy drapes, crystal chandelier and ornate wall sconces. On the morning of Feb. 26, 2010, however, Clinton was talking about something more sensitive than mere foreign affairs: her relationship with Barack Obama. To say she chose her words carefully doesn’t do justice to the delicacy of the exercise. She was like a technician, deciding which color wire to snip without blowing up her relationship with the White House. “We’ve developed, I think, a very good rapport, really positive about everything you can imagine,” Clinton said about the man she described during the 2008 campaign as naïve, irresponsible and hopelessly unprepared to be president. “And we’ve had some interesting and even unusual experiences along the way. ” She leaned forward as she spoke, gesturing with her hands and laughing easily. In talking with reporters, Clinton displays more warmth than Obama does, though there’s less of an expectation that she might say something revealing. Clinton singled out, as she often would, the United Nations meeting in Copenhagen the previous December, where she and Obama worked together to save the meeting from collapse. She brought up the Middle East peace proc ess, a signature project of the president’s, which she had been tasked with reviving. But she was understandably wary of talking about areas in which she and Obama split — namely, on bedrock issues of war and peace, where Clinton’s more activist philosophy had already collided in unpredictable ways with her boss’s instincts toward restraint. She had backed Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s recommendation to send 40, 000 more troops to Afghanistan, before endorsing a fallback proposal of 30, 000 (Obama went along with that, though he stipulated that the soldiers would begin to pull out again in July 2011, which she viewed as problematic). She supported the Pentagon’s plan to leave behind a residual force of 10, 000 to 20, 000 American troops in Iraq (Obama balked at this, largely because of his inability to win legal protections from the Iraqis, a failure that was to haunt him when the Islamic State overran much of the country). And she pressed for the United States to funnel arms to the rebels in Syria’s civil war (an idea Obama initially rebuffed before later, halfheartedly, coming around to it). That fundamental tension between Clinton and the president would continue to be a defining feature of her tenure as secretary of state. In the administration’s first meeting on Russia in February 2009, aides to Obama proposed that the United States make some symbolic concessions to Russia as a gesture of its good will in resetting the relationship. Clinton, the last to speak, brusquely rejected the idea, saying, “I’m not giving up anything for nothing. ” Her hardheadedness made an impression on Robert Gates, the defense secretary and George W. Bush holdover who was wary of a changed Russia. He decided there and then that she was someone he could do business with. “I thought, This is a tough lady,” he told me. A few months after my interview in her office, another split emerged when Obama picked up a secure phone for a weekend conference call with Clinton, Gates and a handful of other advisers. It was July 2010, four months after the North Korean military torpedoed a South Korean Navy corvette, sinking it and killing 46 sailors. Now, after weeks of fierce debate between the Pentagon and the State Department, the United States was gearing up to respond to this brazen provocation. The tentative plan — developed by Clinton’s deputy at State, James Steinberg — was to dispatch the aircraft carrier George Washington into coastal waters to the east of North Korea as an unusual show of force. But Adm. Robert Willard, then the Pacific commander, wanted to send the carrier on a more aggressive course, into the Yellow Sea, between North Korea and China. The Chinese foreign ministry had warned the United States against the move, which for Willard was all the more reason to press forward. He pushed the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mike Mullen, who in turn pushed his boss, the defense secretary, to reroute the George Washington. Gates agreed, but he needed the commander in chief to sign off on a decision that could have political as well as military repercussions. Gates laid out the case for diverting the George Washington to the Yellow Sea: that the United States should not look as if it was yielding to China. Clinton strongly seconded it. “We’ve got to run it up the gut!” she had said to her aides a few days earlier. (The Vince Lombardi imitation drew giggles from her staff, who, even 18 months into her tenure, still marveled at her pugnacity.) Obama, though, was not persuaded. The George Washington was already underway changing its course was not a decision to make on the fly. “I don’t call audibles with aircraft carriers,” he said — unwittingly Clinton on her football metaphor. It wasn’t the last debate in which she would side with Gates. The two quickly discovered that they shared a Midwestern upbringing, a taste for a stiff drink after a long day of work and a skepticism about the intentions of America’s foes. Bruce Riedel, a former intelligence analyst who conducted Obama’s initial review on the Afghanistan war, says: “I think one of the surprises for Gates and the military was, here they come in expecting a very administration, and they discover that they have a secretary of state who’s a little bit right of them on these issues — a little more eager than they are, to a certain extent. Particularly on Afghanistan, where I think Gates knew more had to be done, knew more troops needed to be sent in, but had a lot of doubts about whether it would work. ” As Hillary Clinton makes another run for president, it can be tempting to view her rhetoric about the world less as deeply felt core principle than as calculated political maneuver. But Clinton’s instincts are bred in the bone — grounded in cold realism about human nature and what one aide calls “a textbook view of American exceptionalism. ” It set her apart from her Barack Obama, who avoided military entanglements and tried to reconcile Americans to a world in which the United States was no longer the undisputed hegemon. And it will likely set her apart from the Republican candidate she meets in the general election. For all their bluster about bombing the Islamic State into oblivion, neither Donald J. Trump nor Senator Ted Cruz of Texas has demonstrated anywhere near the appetite for military engagement abroad that Clinton has. “Hillary is very much a member of the traditional American establishment,” says Vali Nasr, a strategist who advised her on Pakistan and Afghanistan at the State Department. “She believes, like presidents going back to the Reagan or Kennedy years, in the importance of the military — in solving terrorism, in asserting American influence. The shift with Obama is that he went from reliance on the military to the intelligence agencies. Their position was, ‘All you need to deal with terrorism is N. S. A. and C. I. A. drones and special ops.’ So the C. I. A. gave Obama an angle, if you will, to be simultaneously hawkish and shun using the military. ” Unlike other recent presidents — Obama, George W. Bush or her husband, Bill Clinton — Hillary Clinton would assume the office with a long record on national security. There are many ways to examine that record, but one of the most revealing is to explore her cultivation of the military — not just civilian leaders like Gates, but also its commanders, the men with the medals. Her affinity for the armed forces is rooted in a lifelong belief that the calculated use of military power is vital to defending national interests, that American intervention does more good than harm and that the writ of the United States properly reaches, as Bush once put it, into “any dark corner of the world. ” Unexpectedly, in the bombastic, presidential election of 2016, Hillary Clinton is the last true hawk left in the race. For those who know Clinton’s biography, her embrace of the military should come as no surprise. She grew up in the buoyant aftermath of World War II, the daughter of a Navy petty officer who trained young sailors before they shipped out to the Pacific. Her father, Hugh Rodham, was a staunch Republican and an anticommunist, and she channeled his views. She talks often about her girlhood dream of becoming an astronaut, citing the rejection letter she got from NASA as the first time she encountered gender discrimination. Her real motive for volunteering, she has written, may have been because her father fretted that “America was lagging behind Russia. ” Political conversion came later, after Vietnam and the ’60s swept over Wellesley College, where she spoke out against the establishment at her graduation. But even in the tumultuous year of 1968, she was still making her transition from Republican to Democrat, managing to go to the conventions of both parties. As a Republican intern in Washington that summer, she questioned a Wisconsin congressman, Melvin Laird, about the wisdom of Lyndon B. Johnson’s escalating involvement in Southeast Asia. It was after law school that she had her most curious encounter with the military. In 1975, the year she married Bill Clinton, she stopped in at a Marine recruiting office in Arkansas to inquire about joining the active forces or reserves. She was a lawyer, she explained maybe there was some way she could serve. The recruiter, she recalled two decades later, was a young man of about 21, in prime physical condition. Clinton was then 27, freshly transplanted from Washington, teaching law at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville and wearing eyeglasses. “You’re too old, you can’t see and you’re a woman,” he told her. “Maybe the dogs will take you,” he added, in what she said was a pejorative reference to the Army. “It was not a very encouraging conversation,” Clinton said at a lunch for military women on Capitol Hill in 1994. “I decided, Maybe I’ll look for another way to serve my country. ” Some reporters have cast doubt on the veracity of this story, which she repeated in the fall of 2015 over breakfast with voters in New Hampshire: certainly, there’s no concrete evidence that it happened, and Bill gave a different account of it in 2008, substituting the Army for the Marines. Why would a professionally minded Yale Law graduate, on the cusp of marriage, suddenly want to put on a uniform? It’s impossible to decipher her possible motives, but Ann Henry, an old friend who taught at the university after Clinton moved to Little Rock, offers a theory: During those days, she recalls, female faculty members, as an exercise, would test the boundaries of careers that appeared closed to women. “I don’t think it’s made up,” she says. “It was consistent with something she would have done. ” Clinton’s next sustained exposure to the military did not come until she was first lady, almost two decades later. Living in the White House is, in many ways, like living in a military compound. A Marine stands guard in front of the West Wing when the president is in the Oval Office. The Mili tary Office operates the medical center and the telecommunications system. The Navy runs the cafeteria, the Marines transport the president by helicopter, the Air Force by plane. Camp David is a naval facility. The daily contact with men and women in uniform, Clinton’s friends say, deepened her feelings for them. In March 1996, the first lady visited American troops stationed in Bosnia. The trip became notorious years later when she claimed, during the 2008 campaign, to have dodged sniper fire after her military plane landed at an American base in Tuzla. (Chris Hill, a diplomat who was onboard that day and later served as ambassador to Iraq under Clinton, didn’t remember snipers at all, and indeed recalled children handing her bouquets of spring flowers.) But there was no faking the good vibes during her tour of the mess and rec halls. With her teenage daughter at her side, she bantered and joked with the young servicemen and women — an experience, she wrote, that “left lasting impressions on Chelsea and me. ” When Clinton was elected to the Senate, she had strong political reasons to care about the mili tary. The Pentagon was in the midst of a long, politically charged process of closing military bases New York State had already been a victim, when Plattsburgh Air Force Base was closed in 1995, a loss of 352 civilian jobs for that North Country town. New York’s delegation was determined to protect its remaining bases, especially Fort Drum, home of the Army’s 10th Mountain Division, which sprawls over a hundred thousand acres in rural Jefferson County. In October 2001, a month after the terrorist attacks, Clinton traveled to Fort Drum at the invitation of Gen. Buster Hagenbeck, who had just been named the division’s commander and would be deployed to Afghanistan a month later. Like many of the officers I spoke with, he had preconceptions of Clinton from her years as first lady the woman who showed up at his office around happy hour that afternoon did not fulfill them. “She sat down,” he recalls, “took her shoes off, put her feet up on the coffee table and said, ‘General, do you know where a gal can get a cold beer around here? ’’u2009” It was the start of a dialogue that stretched over two wars. In the spring of 2002, Hagenbeck led Operation Anaconda, a assault on Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters in the Valley that was the largest combat engagement of the war to date. When the general came back to Washington to brief the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Clinton took him out to dinner on Capitol Hill for her own briefing. They also spoke about the Bush administration’s preparations for war in Iraq, something which Hagenbeck was following anxiously. The general, it turned out, was more of a dove than the senator. He warned her about the risks of an invasion, which was then being inside the Pentagon. It would be like “kicking over a bee’s nest,” he said. Hagenbeck excused Clinton’s vote in 2002 to authorize military action in Iraq. “She made a considered call,” he says. And “she was chagrined, much after the fact. ” For him, what mattered more than Clinton’s voting record was her unstinting public support of the military, whether in protecting Fort Drum or backing him during a difficult first year in Afghanistan. Clinton’s education in military affairs began in earnest in 2002, after the Democratic Party’s crushing defeat in midterm elections moved her up several rungs in Senate seniority. The party’s congressional leaders offered her a seat on either the Senate Foreign Relations Committee or the Senate Armed Services Committee. She chose Armed Services, spurning a long tradition of New York senators, like Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jacob Javits, who coveted the prestige of Foreign Relations. Armed Services deals with more earthbound issues, like benefits for veterans, and it had long been the preserve of Republican hawks like John McCain. But after Clinton saw Armed Services as better preparation for her future. For a politician looking to hone credentials — a woman who aspired to be commander in chief — it was the perfect training ground. She dug in like a grunt at boot camp. Andrew Shapiro, then Senator Clinton’s adviser, called upon 10 experts — including Bill Perry, who was defense secretary under her husband, and Ashton Carter, who would eventually become President Obama’s fourth defense secretary — to tutor her on everything from grand strategy to defense procurement. She met quietly with Andrew Marshall, an octogenarian strategist at the Pentagon who labored for decades in the blandly named Office of Net Assessment, earning the nickname Yoda for his Delphic insights. She went to every committee meeting, no matter how mundane. Aides recall her on sitting alone in the chamber, patiently questioning a lieutenant colonel. She visited the troops in Afghanistan on Thanksgiving Day in 2003 and spoke at every significant military installation in New York State. By then — 30 years after she recalled being rejected by a Marine recruiter in Arkansas — Hillary Clinton had become a military wonk. Jack Keane is one of the intellectual architects of the Iraq surge he is also perhaps the greatest single influence on the way Hillary Clinton thinks about military issues. A bear of a man with a jowly, careworn face and hair, Keane exudes the supreme you would expect of a retired general. He speaks with a trace of a New York accent that gives his pronouncements a urgency. He is also a member of the complex, sitting on the board of General Dynamics and serving as a strategic adviser to Academi, the contractor once known as Blackwater. And he is the chairman of an aptly named think tank, the Institute for the Study of War. Though he is one of a parade of generals, Keane is the resident hawk on Fox News, where he appears regularly to call for the United States to use greater military force in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. He doesn’t shrink from putting boots on the ground and has little use for civilian leaders, like Obama, who do. Keane first got to know Clinton in the fall of 2001, when she was a freshman senator and he was the Army’s second in command, with a distinguished combat and command record in Vietnam, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo. He had expected her to be intelligent, and politically astute, but he was not prepared for the respect she showed for the Army as an institution, or her sympathy for the sacrifices made by soldiers and their families. Keane was confident he could smell a phony politician a mile away, and he didn’t get that whiff from her. “I read people that’s one of my strengths,” he told me. “It’s not that I can’t be fooled, but I’m not fooled often. ” Clinton took an instant liking to Keane, too. “She loves that Irish gruff thing,” says one of her Senate aides, Kris Balderston, who was in the room that day. When Keane got up after 45 minutes to leave for a meeting back at the Pentagon with a Polish general, she protested that she wasn’t finished yet and asked for another appointment. “I said, ‘O. K. but it took me three months to get this one,’’u2009” Keane told her dryly. Clinton exploded into a raucous laugh. “I’ll take care of that problem,” she promised. She was true to her word: The two would meet many times over the next decade, discussing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Iranian nu clear threat and other flash points in the Middle East. Sometimes he dropped by her Senate office other times they met for dinner or drinks. He escorted her on her first visit to Fort Drum and set up her first trip to Iraq. They generally agreed to forgo talk of politics, but at a meeting in Clinton’s Senate office in January 2007, Keane tried to sell her on the logic of a troop surge in Iraq. The previous month, he had met with President Bush in the Oval Office to recommend that the United States deploy five to eight Army and Marine brigades to wage an urban counterinsurgency campaign only that, he argued, would stabilize a country being ripped apart by sectarian strife. His presentation angered some of Keane’s fellow generals, who feared that such a strategy would deepen Iraq’s dependency and prolong America’s involvement. But it had a big impact on the commander in chief, who soon ordered more than 20, 000 additional troops to Iraq. Clinton was another story. “I’m convinced it’s not going to work, Jack,” she told him. She predicted that the American soldiers patrolling in Iraqi cities and towns would be “blown up” by Sunni militias or Al Qaeda fighters. “She thought we would fail,” Keane recalls, “and it was going to cause increased casualties. ” Politics, of course, was also on her mind. Barack Obama was laying the groundwork for his candidacy in with a campaign that would emphasize his opposition to the Iraq War and her vote in favor of it — a vote that still shadows her in this year’s Democratic primaries. Obama was setting off on a drive that would net $25 million in three months, sending tremors through Clinton’s political camp and establishing him as a formidable rival. Although she disagreed with Keane about Iraq, Clinton asked him to become a formal adviser. “As much as I respect you,” he replied, “I can’t do that. ” Keane’s wife had health problems that had moved up his retirement from the Army, and he did not, as a policy, endorse candidates. Sometime during 2008 — he doesn’t remember exactly when — Clinton told him she had erred in doubting the wisdom of the surge. “She said, ‘You were right, this really did work,’’u2009” Keane recalls. “On issues of national security,” he says, “I thought she was always intellectually honest with me. ” He and Clinton continued to talk, even after Obama was elected and she became secretary of state. More often than not, they found themselves in sync. Keane, like Clinton, favored more robust intervention in Syria than Obama did. In April 2015, the week before she announced her candidacy, Clinton asked him for a briefing on military options for dealing with the fighters of the Islamic State. Bringing along three young female analysts from the Institute for the Study of War, Keane gave her a presentation. Among other steps, he advocated imposing a zone over parts of Syria that would neutralize the air power of the Syrian president, Bashar with a goal of forcing him into a political settlement with opposition groups. Six months later, Clinton publicly adopted this position, further distancing herself from Obama. “I’m convinced this president, no matter what the circumstances, will never put any boots on the ground to do anything, even when it’s compelling,” Keane told me. He was sitting in the library at his home in McLean, Va. which is lined with books on military history and strategy. His critique of Obama was hardly new or original, but much of it mirrors the thinking of Clinton and her policy advisers. “One of the problems the president has, which weakens his diplomatic efforts, is that leaders don’t believe he would use military power. That’s an issue that would separate the president from Hillary Clinton rather dramatically. She would look at military force as another realistic option, but only where there is no other option. ” Befriending Keane wasn’t just about cultivating a single adviser. It gave Clinton instant entree to his informal network of and retired generals. The most interesting by far was David Petraeus, a cerebral commander who shared Clinton’s ambition and whose life stories would mix heady success with humbling setbacks. Both would be accused of mishandling classified information — Clinton because of her use of a private server and email address to conduct sensitive government business, a decision that erupted into a political scandal Petraeus because he had given a diary containing classified information to his biographer and mistress (he was eventually charged with a misdemeanor for mishandling classified information). On Clinton’s first trip to Iraq in November 2003, Petraeus, then a general commanding the 101st Airborne Division, flew from his field headquarters in Mosul to the relative safety of Kirkuk to brief her congressional delegation. “She was full of questions,” he recalls. “It was the kind of gesture that means a lot to a battlefield commander. ” On subsequent trips, as he rose in rank, Petraeus walked her through his plans to train and equip Iraqi Army troops, a forerunner of the counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan. It worked to their mutual benefit: Petraeus was building ties to a prominent Democratic voice in the Senate Clinton was burnishing her image as a friend of the troops. “She did it the way,” he says. “She did it by pursuing relationships. ” When Petraeus was sent back to Iraq as the top commander in early 2007, he gave every member of the Senate Armed Services Committee a copy of the U. S. Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual, which he edited during a tour at Fort Leavenworth. Clinton read hers from cover to cover. Although Clinton’s reservations about the surge were valid — the stability that the additional troops brought to Iraq didn’t last — her opposition to it, like her vote for the war, came back to haunt her. This time, it was her ally Bob Gates who summoned the ghost. In his memoirs, Gates wrote that she confessed to him and the president that her position had been politically motivated, because she was then facing Obama in the Iowa caucuses. (Obama, he wrote, “vaguely” conceded that he, too, had opposed it for political reasons.) Clinton pushed back, telling Diane Sawyer of ABC News that Gates “perhaps either missed the context or the meaning, because I did oppose the surge. ” Her opposition, she told Sawyer, was driven by the fact that at that time, people were not going to accept any escalation of the war. “This is not politics in electoral, political terms,” Clinton said. “This is politics in the sense of the American public has to support commitments like this. ” The next time she found herself in a debate over sending troops into harm’s way, she voiced no such reservations. “We need maps,” Hillary Clinton told her aides. It was early October 2009, and she had just returned from a meeting in the Situation Room. Obama’s war cabinet was debating how many additional troops to send to Afghanistan, where the United States, preoccupied by Iraq, had allowed the Taliban to regroup. The Pentagon, she reported, had used impressive, maps to show its plans to deploy troops around the country. The attention to detail made Gates and his commanders look crisp and well prepared the State Department, which was pushing a “civilian surge” to accompany the troops, looked wan by comparison. At the next meeting, on Oct. 14, the team from State unfurled its own maps to show the deployment of an army of aid workers, diplomats, legal experts and crop specialists who were supposed to follow the soldiers into Afghanistan. Clinton’s fixation with maps was typical of her in the first great debate of the Obama presidency. She wanted to be taken seriously, even if her department was less central than the Pentagon. One way to do that was by promoting the civilian surge, the pet project of her friend and special envoy to the region, Richard Holbrooke. “She was determined that her briefing books would be just as thick and just as meticulous as those of the Pentagon,” a senior adviser recalls. She also didn’t hesitate to get into the Pentagon’s business, asking detailed questions about the training of Afghan troops and wading into the weeds of military planning. She resolved not to miss out on anything — a determination that may have been rooted in a deeper insecurity about her role in what was to become the most White administration of the modern era. On the morning of June 8, 2009, she emailed two aides to say: “I heard on the radio that there is a Cabinet mtg this am. Is there? Can I go? If not, who are we sending?” On Feb. 10, 2010, she dialed the White House from her home, but couldn’t get past the switchboard operator, who didn’t believe she was really Hillary Clinton. Asked to provide her office number to prove her identity, she said she didn’t know it. Finally, Clinton hung up in frustration and placed the call again through the State Department Operations Center — “like a proper and properly dependent secretary of state,” as she later wrote to one aide in a tone. “No independent dialing allowed. ” The Afghan troop debate, a drama of dueling egos, leaked documents and endless deliberations, is typically framed as a test of wills between the Pentagon’s wily military commanders and an inexperienced young president, with Joe Biden playing the role of devil’s advocate for Obama. While that portrait is accurate, it neglects the role of Clinton. By siding with Gates and the generals, she gave political ballast to their proposals and provided a bullish counterpoint to Biden’s skepticism. Her role should not be overstated: She did not turn the debate, nor did she bring to it any distinctive point of view. But her unstinting support of General McChrystal’s maximalist recommendation made it harder for Obama to choose a lesser option. (McChrystal was later fired by Obama after his aides made derogatory remarks about almost every member of his war cabinet to Rolling Stone magazine she was the exception. “Hillary had Stan’s back,” one of his aides told the reporter, Michael Hastings.) “Hillary was adamant in her support for what Stan asked for,” Gates says. “She made clear that she was ready to support his request for the full 40, 000 troops. She then made clear that she was only willing to go with the 30, 000 number because I proposed it. She was, in a way, tougher on the numbers in the surge than I was. ” Gates believed that if he could align Clinton the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mike Mullen the commander of Central Command, David Petraeus and himself behind a common position, it would be hard for Obama to say no. “How could you ignore these Four Horsemen of national security?” says Geoff Morrell, who served as the Pentagon press secretary at the time. Just as Clinton benefited from her alliance with the military commanders, she gave them political cover. “Here’s the dirty little secret,” says Tom Nides, her former deputy secretary of state for management and resources. “They all knew they wanted her on their side. They knew that if they walked into the Situation Room and they had her, it made a huge difference in the dynamics. When she opened her mouth, she could change the momentum in the room. ” David Axelrod recalls one meeting where Clinton “kicked the thing off and pretty much articulated their opinion I’m sure that’s one that they remember. There’s no doubt that she wanted to give them every troop that McChrystal was asking for. ” Still, Clinton didn’t prevail on every argument. After agreeing to send the troops, Obama added a condition of his own: that the soldiers be deployed as quickly as possible and pulled out again, starting in the summer of 2011 — a deadline that proved more fateful in the long run than a difference of 10, 000 troops. Clinton opposed setting a public deadline for withdrawal, arguing that it would tip America’s hand to the Taliban and encourage them to wait out the United States — which, in fact, was exactly what happened. In the final days of the debate, Clinton also found herself at odds with her own ambassador in Kabul, Karl Eikenberry. He, too, held different views than she did on the wisdom of a surge, which he put into writing. On Nov. 6, 2009, in a long cable addressed to Clinton — and later leaked to The New York Times — he made a trenchant, convincing case for why the McChrystal proposal, which she endorsed two weeks earlier in a meeting with Obama, would saddle the United States with “vastly increased costs and an indefinite, military role in Afghanistan. ” Much of Eikenberry’s analysis proved prescient, particularly his warnings about the threadbare American partnership with the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai. It carried an extra sting because he was a retired Army general who was the commander in Afghanistan from 2005 to 2007. Clinton, who had not asked for the cable, was furious, fearing it could upset a debate in which she and the Pentagon were about to prevail. What the cable made clear was the degree to which the Afghanistan debate was dominated by military considerations. While Clinton did raise the need to deal with Afghanistan’s neighbor, Pakistan, her reflexive support of Gates, Petraeus and McChrystal meant she was not a powerful voice for diplomatic alternatives. “She contributed to the overmilitarizing of the analysis of the problem,” says Sarah Chayes, who was an adviser to McChrystal and later to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mike Mullen. In October 2015, the persistent violence in Afghanistan and the legacy of Karzai’s misrule forced Obama to reverse his plan to withdraw the last American soldiers by the end of his presi dency. A few thousand troops will stay there indefinitely. And for all of Clinton’s talk about a civilian surge, it never really materialized. For Clinton, the Afghanistan episode laid bare a vexed relationship between her and Eikenberry, one of the few generals with whom she didn’t hit it off. A with graduate degrees from Harvard and Stanford, Eikenberry was brilliant but had a reputation among his colleagues for being imperious. Clinton had a similarly chilly relationship with Douglas Lute, another Army lieutenant general with a graduate degree from Harvard, who also fought with Holbrooke. “She likes the — McChrystal, Petraeus, Keane,” one of her aides observes. “Real military guys, not these retired who go into civilian jobs. ” “There’s no doubt that Hillary Clinton’s more muscular brand of American foreign policy is better matched to 2016 than it was to 2008,” said Jake Sullivan, her top policy adviser at the State Department, who plays the same role in her campaign. It was De cem ber 2015, 53 days before the Iowa caucuses, and Sullivan was sitting down with me in Clinton’s sprawling Brooklyn headquarters to explain how she was shaping her message for a campaign suddenly dominated by concerns about national security. Clinton’s strategy, he said, was twofold: Explain to voters that she had a clear plan for confronting the threat posed by Islamic terrorism, and expose her Republican opponents as utterly lacking in experience or credibility on national security. There were good reasons for Clinton to let her inner hawk fly. After the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif. Americans’ concern about a major attack on the nation spiked. A poll taken after Paris showed that a majority, 53 percent, favored sending ground troops to Iraq or Syria, a remarkable shift from the sentiment that prevailed during most of Obama’s presidency. The Republican candidates were reaching for apocalyptic metaphors to demonstrate their resolve. Ted Cruz threatened to the Islamic State to test whether desert sand can glow Donald Trump called for the United States to ban all Muslims from entering the country “until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses. ” Yet such spikes in the public appetite for mili tary action tend to be transitory. Three weeks later, the same poll showed an even split, at 49 percent, on whether to deploy troops. Neither Trump nor Cruz favors major new deployments of American soldiers to Iraq and Syria (nor, for that matter, does Clinton). If anything, both are more skeptical than Clinton about intervention and more circumspect than she about maintaining the nation’s War II military commitments. Trump loudly proclaims his opposition to the Iraq War. He wants the United States to spend less to underwrite NATO and has talked about withdrawing the American security umbrella from Asia, even if that means Japan and South Korea would acquire nuclear weapons to defend themselves. Cruz, unlike Clinton, opposed aiding the Syrian rebels in 2014. He once supported Pentagon budget constraints advocated by his isolationist colleague, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. Thus might the gen eral election present voters with an unfamiliar choice: a Democratic hawk versus a Republican reluctant warrior. To thwart the progressive insurgency of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Clinton carefully calibrated her message during the Democratic primaries to align herself closely with Barack Obama and his racially diverse coalition. But as she pivots to the general election, that balancing act with Obama will become trickier. “There’s going to be a huge amount of interest in the press to ” Sullivan says. “It just so easily can become a sport that distracts from her ability to make an affirmative case. ” In showing her stripes as a prospective commander in chief, Clinton will no doubt draw heavily upon her State Department experience — filtering the lessons she learned in Libya, Syria and Iraq into the sinewy worldview she has held since childhood. Last fall, in a series of policy speeches, Clinton began limning distinctions with the president on national security. She said the United States should consider sending more troops to Iraq than Obama had committed, to help the Iraqis and Kurds fight the Islamic State. She came out in favor of a partial zone over Syria. And she described the threat posed by ISIS to Americans in starker terms than he did. As is often the case with Clinton and Obama, the differences were less about direction than degree. She wasn’t calling for ground troops in the Middle East, any more than he was. Clinton insisted her plan was not a break with his, merely an “intensification and acceleration” of it. It’s an open question how well Clinton’s hawkish instincts match the country’s mood. Americans are weary of war and remain suspicious of foreign entanglements. And yet, after the retrenchment of the Obama years, there is polling evidence that they are equally dissatisfied with a portrait of their country as a spent force, managing its decline amid a world of rising powers like China, resurgent empires like Vladimir Putin’s Russia and lethal new forces like the Islamic State. If Obama’s minimalist approach was a necessary reaction to the maximalist style of his predecessor, then perhaps what Americans yearn for is something in between — the kind of pragmatism that Clinton has spent a lifetime honing. “The president has made some tough decisions,” says Leon Panetta, who served as Obama’s defense secretary after Bob Gates, and as director of the C. I. A. before David Petraeus. “But it’s been a mixed record, and the concern is, the president defining what America’s role in the world is in the 21st century hasn’t happened. “Hopefully, he’ll do it,” he added, acknowledging the time Obama has left. “Certainly, she would. ”

During a discussion of BuzzFeed’s story on a dossier regarding Russia and Donald Trump on Wednesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “MTP Daily,” host Chuck Todd told BuzzFeed Ben Smith “you just published fake news. ” Todd said BuzzFeed’s decision to publish the dossier was an instance where they “would not have made the same decision in the era. ” Smith stated that it was more “the era. ” And that there was a time “where we could act as gatekeepers. Where we could say, you know what, crazy people are claiming that Barack Obama’s birth certificate is forged, but we’re not going to write about that, that’s crazy. ” He continued that this era doesn’t exist, and that while they had reporters trying to confirm or deny specific details, the dossier was “in play,” and “having consequences for the way our elected leaders are acting. The — you do have to ask the question of, why should I suppress that? There are then good reasons, right? Once though, it emerges, as it did last night in the public conversation that there is this secret document floating around, full of dark allegations that we will not repeat to you. That I feel like in this era, you really have to share [with] your readers what that is in an appropriate context. And our original report, I mean, if you read what we wrote, it stressed that there were real solid reasons to distrust this. It noted two specific errors. ” Todd then asked if BuzzFeed had a responsibility to not spread false information. Smith responded that, like with the Obama birth certificate issue, it’s a “difficult balance that everybody in our business navigates every day. ” Todd then asked if BuzzFeed would publish a false birth certificate. Smith answered, “We certainly quoted the of the United States making false claims about it, and years ago we debated whether we should quote regular citizens in Iowa saying, I don’t believe his birth certificate. And I remember us thinking at first, we probably shouldn’t. That we we shouldn’t pass that on and then saying, you know what, this has become a force that is impacting the conversation. ” Todd countered, “I know this was not your intent. I’ve known you a long time, but you just published fake news. ” Smith countered that people throw the term “fake news” around to diminish things they don’t like, and that “this was a real story about a real document that was really being passed around between the very top officials of this country. And then the question you say is, okay, it’s okay for you — to Chuck Todd see this document. It’s okay for me to see it. Okay for Senator John McCain ( ). Okay for the CIA. What’s — why is it not okay for your audience?” Todd then countered that BuzzFeed could have published a redacted version of the document. Smith answered that there was fair disagreement, but didn’t think you could defend acknowledging the dossier’s existence but then not say what was in it and that this was saying it was okay to summarize false claims. Smith further stated that if there wasn’t a “public conversation” about the dossier, they would have just continued to report the story out. ( Mediaite) Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett

LONDON — With their giddy celebrations of “independence day” having given way to political and economic turmoil, one thing has become especially clear about the former London mayor Boris Johnson and other leaders of the successful campaign to vote Britain out of the European Union: They had no plan for what comes next. In the days since Britain voted to leave the bloc, the movement’s leaders have often appeared as if they had not expected to win and were not prepared to cope with the consequences. Faced with the scope of the decision, they have been busy walking back promises they made during the campaign and scaling back expectations. They have failed to show a united front or to answer basic questions. Their faltering performance has added to the sense of political chaos in Britain and, arguably, to the turmoil in the financial markets. And it has undercut their credibility and authority as Mr. Johnson prepares his bid to become prime minister and lead Britain into a new relationship with the Continent. The stakes are high for Mr. Johnson in particular, as he tries to build an impression as a capable leader amid the chaos that followed the vote in favor of a British exit, or “Brexit. ” But the mixed signals coming from him and other proponents of leaving the European Union have left their intentions unclear on such basic issues as when and how they will seek to negotiate a withdrawal, and what kind of new arrangement they want. To the degree that they have signaled a direction, it has often been substantially different from what they promised during the campaign. On issues from immigration to spending on the National Health Service, the “Leave” coalition has retreated from its more populist and apparently exaggerated claims. Many of those assertions had been promoted by the U. K. Independence Party, or UKIP, led by Nigel Farage, and benefited the broader Leave campaign, whose most prominent figures included two senior Conservatives, Mr. Johnson and Michael Gove, the justice minister. In changing their tune, the leaders of the Union campaign risk undermining whatever trust they had earned from the millions who voted to leave the bloc in the expectation that immigration would be cut sharply and that money now going to the European Union — which the Leave campaign said was 350 million pounds, or $465 million, a week — would be available to help finance the National Health Service. For example, one Leave advocate, Iain Duncan Smith, a former Conservative Party leader and cabinet secretary, walked away from the campaign pledge to reallocate the £350 million a week to the health service. Instead, he said, “the lion’s share” of anything left from that amount after replacing subsidies from the bloc to British farmers could be available for health services. On immigration, too, there was immediate backtracking from Mr. Johnson and Daniel Hannan, a member of the European Parliament from the Conservative Party, who told the BBC, “Frankly, if people watching think that they have voted and there is now going to be zero immigration from the E. U. they are going to be disappointed. ” Analysts say the change in tone may be necessary to begin reeling in unrealistic expectations about the changes the referendum could produce, but it also holds considerable political peril for Mr. Johnson and other Conservative Party leaders of the Leave campaign, especially with populist sentiment spreading and groups like the U. K. Independence Party eager to build support. “There is a clear tension between what the voter wanted and what senior euroskeptic leaders want to produce,” said Matthew Goodwin, a professor of politics and international relations at the University of Kent. “If they don’t deliver radical reforms on immigration, it would be the equivalent of pouring gasoline on the populist UKIP fire that has been burning since 2010. ” In his regular column in The Daily Telegraph on Monday, Mr. Johnson tried to strike a prime ministerial tone of unity in the wake of the divisive referendum, but he emphasized continuity over change and tried to argue that immigration, clearly the primary motivation for many voters in taking a position against Europe, was somehow not a major issue. “It is said that those who voted Leave were mainly driven by anxieties about immigration,” Mr. Johnson wrote. “I do not believe that is so. ” Suggesting that he wants to keep some kind of open flow of people across the border with Europe, Mr. Johnson wrote, “British people will still be able to go and work in the E. U. to live to travel to study to buy homes and to settle down. ” Not only that, he asserted, “There will continue to be free trade, and access to the single market. ” What he described was a relationship with the European Union like that of Norway, which would allow freedom of movement and labor and would pay money to Brussels in return for access to the single market, but without having a voice in . But Mr. Johnson rejected the Norway model during the campaign, and even if negotiations proved to lead to a slightly enhanced Norway, with some symbolic measures to restrict immigration of European Union citizens to Britain, the result would be a betrayal of those who voted Leave. And right now, Norway pays Brussels roughly per capita what Britain currently does as a full member. “The difficulty for Boris and Gove is that Brexit feels like a column gone wrong, an academic exercise suddenly turned into reality,” Paul Waugh wrote in his blog for The Huffington Post, alluding to the shared backgrounds in journalism of Mr. Johnson and Mr. Gove. “And reality, particularly where the E. U. is concerned, is a messy, complex thing. ” Mr. Johnson is clearly looking to unite the divided Conservative Party behind his own, flamboyant self and to burnish his economic credentials. But playing down immigration, Mr. Goodwin said, could create more political trouble. “I worry for senior euroskeptic leaders, because there is a misunderstanding of the vote, and that will feed voter dissatisfaction,” he said, driving many of the voters who chose a British exit to turn away from both mainstream parties and move to the populist right. The referendum was unusual, because it pitted a government on one side, “Remain,” against a loose coalition on the other, made up of Conservatives, some Labour legislators and U. K. Independence Party supporters. The Leave side never had to hammer out an agreement on how to proceed if it won, said Tony Travers, a professor of government at the London School of Economics. “There was no coherence, because it wasn’t a political party fighting for government, but an odd coalition fighting against something, but with no consistent view of what it was fighting for,” he said. Even on the economy, the Leave side was made of economists who believe in no tariffs at all, those who believe in trade deals and protectionists who want to shield the declining working class against globalization, Professor Travers said. “And now the government will have to be reformed as if it were representing the Leave side and yet represent both, a government that must reflect the schism in itself,” he said. In the aftermath of the Leave campaign’s victory, the political editor for Sky News, Faisal Islam, asked a Conservative member of Parliament who supported leaving the bloc to see his camp’s plan. The legislator replied, according to Mr. Islam: “There is no plan. The Leave campaign don’t have a plan. ” Then the legislator added, “Number 10 should have had a plan,” referring to the prime minister’s office.

MIDLAND, Tex. — In the land where oil jobs were once a guaranteed road to security for workers, Eustasio Velazquez’s career has been upended by technology. For 10 years, he laid cables for service companies doing seismic testing in the search for the next big gusher. Then, powerful computer hardware and software replaced cables with wireless data collection, and he lost his job. He found new work connecting pipes on rigs, but lost that job, too, when plunging oil prices in 2015 forced the driller he worked for to replace rig hands with cheaper, more reliable automated tools. “I don’t see a future,” Mr. Velazquez, 44, said on a recent afternoon as he stooped over his shopping cart at a local grocery store. “Pretty soon every rig will have one worker and a robot. ” Oil and gas workers have traditionally had some of the jobs — just the type that President Trump has vowed to preserve and bring back. But the West Texas oil fields, where activity is gearing back up as prices rebound, illustrate how difficult it will be to meet that goal. As in other industries, automation is creating a new demand for workers — sometimes hundreds of miles away in a control center — but their numbers don’t offset the ranks of field hands no longer required to sling chains and lift iron. So while there is a general sense of relief in the oil patch that a recovery is gaining momentum, discussions at company meetings and family kitchen tables are rife with aching worries, especially among those who are with no more than a high school education. Roughly 163, 000 oil jobs were lost nationally from the 2014 peak, or about 30 percent of the total, while oil prices plummeted, at one point by as much as 70 percent. The job losses just in Texas, the most productive state, totaled 98, 000. Several thousand workers have come back to work in recent months as the price of oil has begun to rise again, but energy experts say that between a third and a half of the workers who lost their jobs are not returning. Many have migrated to construction or even jobs in renewable energy, like wind power. “People have left the industry, and they are not coming back,” said Michael Dynan, vice president for portfolio and strategic development at Schramm, a Pennsylvania manufacturer of drilling rigs. “If it’s a repetitive task, it can be automated, and I don’t need someone to do that. I can get a computer to do that. ” Indeed, computers now direct drill bits that were once directed manually. The wireless technology taking hold across the oil patch allows a handful of geoscientists and engineers to monitor the drilling and completion of multiple wells at a time — onshore or miles out to sea — and supervise immediate fixes when something goes wrong, all without leaving their desks. It is a world where rigs walk on their own legs and sensors on wells alert headquarters to a leak or loss of pressure, reducing the need for a technician to check. And despite all the lost workers, United States oil production is galloping upward, to nine million barrels a day from 8. 6 million in September. Nationwide, with a bit more than as many rigs operating as in 2014, production is not even down 10 percent from record levels. Some of the best wells here in the Permian Basin that three years ago required an oil price of over $60 a barrel for an operator to break even now need about $35, well below the current price of about $53. Much of the technology has been developed by the aviation and automotive industries, along with deepwater oil exploration, over more than a decade. But companies drilling on land were slow to adapt until oil prices crashed and companies needed to get efficient quickly or go out of business. All the big companies, and many smaller ones, have organized teams of technicians that collect well and tank data to develop complex algorithms enabling them to duplicate the design for the most productive wells over and over, and to repair valves and other parts before they break down. The result is improved production and safety, but also a far smaller work force, and one that is increasingly morphing from muscle to brain power. Pioneer Natural Resources, one of the most productive West Texas producers, has slashed the number of days to drill and complete wells so drastically that it has been able to cut costs by 25 percent in wells completed since early 2015. The typical rig that drilled eight to 12 wells a year just a few years ago now drills up to 16. Last year, the company added nearly 240 wells to its Permian Basin inventory without adding new employees. The faster operations, Pioneer executives say, are due in large part to more effective well planning and drill steering. Both have been made possible by the computer connections between the rig and top geoscientists back at corporate headquarters and intense analysis of the data gathered at every well. The laborious task of checking tank levels by climbing a flight of steps and popping open a series of latches, for instance, has been replaced by pressing a few icons on a computer touch screen. A fully automated water pump station installed last summer is intended to save hundreds of truck trips every day hauling water for hydraulically fracturing wells, yielding diesel and labor cost savings. “We want to transform our work force to the point where we need to hire fewer people,” said Joey Hall, Pioneer’s executive vice president for Permian operations. Improved computing streamlines operations, he noted, and lets technicians optimally space their wells and more accurately perforate the sweet spots of shale veins to squeeze every drop of oil out of the ground. “We’re heading toward artificial intelligence and machine learning, analyzing thousands of algorithms,” Mr. Hall added, sounding more like a Silicon Valley futurologist than a wildcatter. “Through repetitive operations, you learn the patterns, and through patterns you learn to make automated decisions. ” With the loss of manual jobs has come a transformation in the job force, with demand growing for more data analysts, math scientists, communications specialists and robotic design engineers. In the last two years, ABB, the Swiss technology company, has opened two plants in Houston for assembling and packaging robotics and integrating advanced instrumentation into oil field operations. GE Oil and Gas opened a technology center in Oklahoma City in October to place scientists closer to the oil fields to research and apply new digital industrial technologies for exploration and production. Among its many projects is an experiment to use drones to inspect equipment and identify methane leaks on oil sites. Nabors, the oil services giant, has 100 employees developing software, 10 times the number it had only a few years ago. “With the adoption of all this software and stuff, we’ve had to bring in a lot of new technicians,” said Dennis A. Smith, a Nabors vice president. A typical new oil company employee is Andre Nel, a mechanical engineer who is a rising star at Pioneer Natural Resources. In less than two years, he has helped rewrite computer software to instruct workers on the best designs for hydraulic fracturing, optimizing the amounts of fluids, sand and chemicals pumped into the wells. Now, connected by computers to technicians in the field, he is monitoring the production of 950 wells, instantly checking the maintenance history and production trends of every well with the click of a mouse. “I’m lucky and happy that the tech revolution in the oil field has created the need for engineers like me with backgrounds in computer science,” he said. But smaller companies and their workers are struggling to keep up. S. O. C. Industries, a small local pump truck operator and chemical services provider, is forced to invest $100, 000 a year to keep up with the computer programs and monitoring equipment its clients request. The added expenses are one reason the company has let go 15 of the 60 field workers employed three years ago. Another is that well operators that once hired five or six people on a drill site to mix chemicals and drilling fluids as well as clean up spills are now hiring only three as mechanization has sliced their drilling time in half. Some of the remaining S. O. C. employees are straining to keep up with new computerized pump truck monitors and GPS systems. “It’s a struggle,” said Rodrigo Urias, 59, an S. O. C. truck driver, who for many years only had to look at a needle on a gauge to monitor flow pressures. Now he needs to reset computer screens, take work orders on a computer tablet and sometimes do algebraic calculations. “A lot of the guys can’t operate these new technologies, tablets and instruments, and they keep whining,” he added. “They want to know why we can’t do things like we used to. ” Manufacturing executives say they are trying to minimize the complexity for field workers, and sometimes design their equipment with the advice of video game makers. That’s a good thing for Michael Manga, 34, an employee of Latshaw Drilling, an Oklahoma company active here. A college dropout, he knocked around from job to job before finding his way to the oil patch. Now, playing video games like Call of Duty and Mario Kart with his friends over the years has paid off, giving him the coordination to monitor and operate the control panels and joy sticks that control the drilling rig. “We do such a good job now,” he said, “we’re drilling ourselves out of a job. ”

Don Halcomb, a farmer in Adairville, Ky. is expecting his profit to vanish this year, largely because of the confluence of falling crop prices and rising costs for seeds and other materials. The price of an bag of seed corn rose to $300 from $80 in the last decade, as the companies that produced them consolidated, he said. And with the recent decline in commodity prices, Mr. Halcomb said he expects to lose $100 an acre this year. “We’re producing our crops at a loss now, just like the oil guys are pumping oil at a loss,” Mr. Halcomb, who grows corn, soybeans, wheat and barley on his family farm, said by telephone on Wednesday. “You can’t cut your costs fast enough. ” It is a common plight of farmers across the United States, with the global agriculture industry in a wrenching downturn. Because farmers have produced too much corn, wheat and soybeans, they have been forced to slash prices to sell their crops. They have also reduced spending on seeds, pesticides and fertilizer, which has eaten into sales at agribusiness giants, including Monsanto and DuPont. In response, these companies have sought deals to cut costs and weather the industry’s storm. Four major agribusiness mergers have been announced in the last year. The latest is Bayer AG’s $56 billion takeover of Monsanto — the largest acquisition of 2016 — announced on Wednesday. Every merger creates the possibility of higher costs for farmers. Mr. Halcomb buys seeds with traits licensed to Monsanto of St. Louis and seeds from DuPont, which has a deal pending to merge with Dow Chemical. His fertilizers are made of potassium compounds and phosphate produced by Agrium of Calgary, Alberta, which on Monday agreed to combine with the fertilizer producer Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan. He uses pesticides made by Syngenta of Switzerland, which agreed in February to a takeover by the China National Chemical Corporation. “It’s just like any other industry that consolidates,” Mr. Halcomb said. “They tell the regulators they’re and then they tell their customers they have to increase pricing after the deal’s done. ” The companies say they are merging to diversify and increase growth and research capabilities, but these deals, given their size and scope, have already caught the attention of lawmakers and regulators in Washington. There is no guarantee that they will all receive regulatory approval, and some companies may have to sell assets to allay antitrust concerns. Dow’s merger with DuPont is under Justice Department review. The market seemed to anticipate hurdles for the Monsanto deal on Wednesday. Shares of the company closed about 20 percent lower than the $128 per share cash offer from Bayer, which is based in Leverkusen, Germany. Shares of each company gained less than 1 percent after the deal was announced. Adding the assumption of about $10 billion of Monsanto debt, Bayer’s total $66 billion pact is the largest deal, according to data compiled by Thomson Reuters, ahead of InBev’s $60. 4 billion offer for another St. company, in June 2008. Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, scheduled a hearing next week to discuss the possible effect of these mergers on farming. Iowa produced more corn last year than any other state, according to the National Corn Growers Association. “It seems to be catching fire and happening so fast with so many,” Senator Grassley said in a phone interview. “When you have less competition, prices go up. ” European competition regulators also said publicly, before a deal was even signed, that they would look at how it could affect prices and the availability of seed products, as well as research. Liam Condon, who leads Bayer’s division, said in an interview that the company did an “extensive analysis” with regard to antitrust before approaching Monsanto in May. Mr. Condon said that he does not believe there is much overlap between their portfolios, because Bayer’s focus is largely on crop protection, while Monsanto’s is on seeds and traits. He said the companies assume they may need to sell off some assets to appease regulators. Monsanto, which is famous for its production of genetically modified seeds, rejected several offers from Bayer as too low. Wednesday’s deal represented a 44 percent premium to Monsanto’s stock price on May 9, the day before Bayer’s interest in a deal surfaced. To assuage Monsanto’s concerns, Bayer threw in a $2 billion breakup fee if the deal fell apart on antitrust grounds. The strategic goal of the deal, according to Bill Selesky, an analyst at Argus Research, is to create a experience for farmers, making Bayer the world’s largest supplier of seeds and farm chemicals. By improving the product for farmers, the combined company could ultimately raise prices, Mr. Selesky said in an interview. Senator Grassley said that he had spoken with a few farmers who believed the deals were necessary so large agribusinesses could continue to absorb the costs of researching and developing products and getting government approval for them. Bayer and Monsanto said they planned to cut about $1. 2 billion worth of costs as part of the deal, helping to improve efficiency. But Jim Benham of Versailles, Ind. the president of the Indiana Farmers Union, was not so optimistic. He blamed the rising costs of inputs — seeds, fertilizer and the like — for eating away at farmers’ profit margins, and warned that consolidation will make it worse. Costs have already risen by double digits over the last four to five years, and the proposed merger could accelerate that. “The merger is going to hurt the farmer,” said Mr. Benham, who grows corn, soybeans and sometimes wheat on his farm. “The more consolidation we have on our inputs, the worse it gets. ” Mr. Condon of Bayer said that the company would not raise prices without providing more value to farmers. “This is a highly competitive industry, and just increasing prices without having any additional advantage or benefit for growers won’t go anywhere,” he said. “It’s up to us to show what we’re offering will help farmers improve their return on investment. ” Some farmers said the consolidation could even enable prices to fall. Christine Hamilton manages a farm of more than 12, 000 acres in Kimball, S. D. growing crops like corn and operating a ranch. She said that if the deal can pass the antitrust screening, then maybe it could actually help farmers. “I understand how companies need to get bigger in order to be competitive,” she said. “As we are in a low part of the cycle, anything that might have a chance of reducing our input prices would be great. ”

Why We Are Still In ‘The Danger Zone’ Until January 20th, 2017 17th, 2016 Donald Trump is not the president yet, and Barack Obama could still do an extraordinary amount of damage during his last two months in the White House. Prior to the election, I described the period of time ending on January 20th as “the danger zone”, and my outlook has not changed just because Donald Trump was victorious on election night. As you will see, the next two months are an absolutely critical time, and if we can get through January 20th without something major happening perhaps we can breathe a little bit easier (at least for a while). On the other hand, the events of the next two months could easily plunge this country into a period of unprecedented chaos. A lot of people are feeling really good about things right now because of Trump’s victory, but now is definitely not a time to relax and let down our guard. And the truth is that Donald Trump has not even won the presidency yet. As I detailed shortly before election night , the next president will not be determined until December 19th when the Electoral College meets. On Monday, December 19th the members of the Electoral College will gather in all 50 state capitals to cast their votes for president. It is then, and only then, that the next president of the United States will be elected. Throughout our history, electors have followed the will of the people more than 99 perfect of the time, but there have been “faithless electors” before, and if Democrats can get enough of them to switch sides in December it is still possible (though not probable) that Hillary Clinton could win the election. One petition that is asking electors to switch their votes has already been signed by more than 4 million people. The petition claims that Donald Trump is “unfit to serve” as president, and that since Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by a wide margin she should be elected president instead. The following comes from a USA Today article entitled “ Could the Electoral College elect Hillary Clinton instead of Donald Trump? “… A Change.org petition, now signed by more than 4.3 million people, encourages members of the Electoral College to cast their votes for Hillary Clinton when the college meets on Dec. 19. The petition argues that Donald Trump is “unfit to serve” and that “Secretary Clinton WON THE POPULAR VOTE and should be President.” “If they all vote the way their states voted, Donald Trump will win,” the petition states. “However, they can vote for Hillary Clinton if they choose. Even in states where that is not allowed, their vote would still be counted, they would simply pay a small fine – which we can be sure Clinton supporters will be glad to pay! We are calling on the Electors to ignore their states’ votes and cast their ballots for Secretary Clinton.” Personally, I don’t believe that this is going to happen. They may be able to flip a few electors, but the gap in electoral votes is almost certainly too wide for the Democrats to overcome. However, that is not the only concern we are facing. Ever since his victory on November 8th, there have been a multitude of violent threats against Donald Trump and his family. And without a doubt, there are a lot of very powerful people that would be very interested in finding a way to keep Donald Trump from getting to Inauguration Day. So let us pray for his safety and for the safety of his family. If Donald Trump were to be incapacitated after he wins the Electoral College vote on December 19th, Mike Pence would take his place. But if something were to happen to him before December 19th, his electors would be free to vote for another candidate – including Hillary Clinton. If everything goes smoothly and Donald Trump successfully makes it to Inauguration Day, he could be facing one of the biggest political protests in United States history. In an article for The Most Important News , I showed that the far left is calling for thousands upon thousands of protesters to descend upon Washington D.C. on January 20th in order to disrupt the Inauguration festivities as much as possible. This giant protest is being organized by the usual suspects, and they have already put up Facebook pages , websites , and the hashtag “#DisruptJ20″ is being widely used all over social media. Traditionally Inauguration Day is a day of joy and celebration, but the far left seems intent on transforming it into a massive riot. Let us hope that they are not successful. Another reason why we will be in “the danger zone” over the next two months is because of what Barack Obama may choose to do at the United Nations. Now that it looks like Donald Trump is going to be our next president, the international pressure on Barack Obama to do something at the United Nations regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before the end of his term has become even more intense. And this is something that Trump and his advisers are actively concerned about. In fact, I came across an article earlier today that discussed the fact that the Trump team is warning Obama “against making moves on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in his last months in office” … Saying that pushing agendas “contrary to the president-elect’s position” would not be in the “spirit of the transition”, Trump national security advisor for Donald Trump last week warned the Obama administration against making moves on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in his last months in office. “On big, transformative issues where President Obama and President-elect Trump are not in alignment, I don’t think it’s in keeping with the spirit of the transition…to try to push through agenda items that are contrary to the president-elect’s positions,” the advisor told Politico . Specifically, the concern is that Obama may decide to support a UN Security Council resolution that would officially recognize a Palestinian state, set the parameters for a “two state solution”, and establish East Jerusalem as the capital for the new Palestinian state. Just a few weeks ago, an article in the Wall Street Journal entitled “ Obama’s Israel Surprise? ” reported that this is one of the options that the Obama administration is strongly considering right now. A UN Security Council resolution would be legally binding on both Israel and the Palestinians, and it would be something that President Trump would not be able to undo. The rest of the UN Security Council is eager to support such a resolution, and so the decision about whether this resolution is going to happen or not sits in the hands of Barack Obama, and at this moment we do not know what he is going to do. The following comes from an article by Leo Hohmann … The Wall Street Journal reported one week before Tuesday’s election that Obama had requested his aides provide him with a list of options to deal with the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israeli diplomats, according to the WSJ story, are preparing for the possibility that a lame-duck President Obama “may try to force a diplomatic resolution for Israel and the Palestinians at the United Nations.” The president is presumably now reviewing those options, which number about half a dozen. He may be preparing to recognize a Palestinian state at the U.N. before he leaves office , WSJ reported. If Barack Obama decides to divide the land of Israel at the United Nations, it will be the worst decision of his entire presidency. I have warned repeatedly that all hell will break loose in America if it happens, and it will also mean that many of the events that I warn about in my latest book are much closer than many had been anticipating. But if we can get to January 20th and the land of Israel has not been divided yet, we may be able to rest easy for at least a little while, because Trump has already said that he would not support a UN Security Council resolution that forces a solution on the Israelis and Palestinians. When politicians are going to do something that they know people won’t like, they tend to try to sneak it through around the holidays when a lot of people aren’t paying attention. For example, yesterday I discussed how the legislation that created the Federal Reserve was rushed through Congress right before Christmas in 1913 . So keep an eye on the period around Thanksgiving and the period around Christmas. If Barack Obama is going to stab Israel in the back, it may happen during one of those times. My hope is that we can get through January 20th without anything going seriously wrong. If that happens, I know that I will be very thankful. And as I detailed in a previous article , Donald Trump will be 70 years, 7 months and 7 days old on his first full day in office on January 21st, and that will happen in year 5777 on the Hebrew calendar. Could that be a sign of better things ahead as many believe? Or will the next two months set off a chain of events that will be absolutely disastrous for this nation? I believe that this is an absolutely critical moment in our history, and let us hope that our leaders make the right decisions. “Danger Zone” Brings back memories of Kenny Loggins and Top Gun. anonymous Listen to her howlin’ roar Metal under tension Beggin’ you to touch and go Highway to the Danger Zone Ride into the Danger Zone Headin’ into twilight Spreadin’ out her wings tonight She got you jumpin’ off the deck And shovin’ into overdrive Highway to the Danger Zone I’ll take you Right into the Danger Zone William Lutz I will not celebrate the holidays this year! Screw Christmas and New Years already. anonymous Good on you. Why support corporate mandated holidays anyway? Thanksgiving should be the most important celebration. We should also celebrate the day of the dead. A solemn reminder of what the future holds for us all. Besides, their parties are awesome! Ricardo We should also celebrate the day of the dead. ………. that is spiritism. King Saul tried to bring up the dead (Samuel) via the witch of Endor………. don’t mess with spiritism Let the dead bury the dead ..Matthew 8:22 …… meaning if you have no spiritual life you are dead so let the dead bury the dead. Halloween. October 31st. What date did Martin Luther nail the 95 thesis to the church (catholic) door ? …… October 31st. Halloween is the catholic church playing with spiritism and fostering it on the world via the disguise of “its just harmless fun”…….. don’t mess with spiritism. anonymous I meant more of a remembrance of loved ones who have passed away. You are painting with a broad religious brush. What is God? Isn’t God a Spirit? What do you know of death? Have you died? You are clearly biased. df NJ God is unknowable force that motivates the electrons to move and have charge. Without God, time would cease to exist. Paul Benson Wrong again df NJ (Dumb Friend from New Jersey?) God has gone to great extremes to make himself knowable. When Jesus died on the Cross the veil of the Temple was torn by god from top to bottom as a sign the way into his presence had been given. Put your faith in Jesus, follow his teaching, and that path will lead you to the Father and eternal life. YOU CAN KNOW GOD! Mondobeyondo Merry Hallothanksmaskwanzaanewyear! nick I am a political atheist, just to set the record straight. Although I visit this site fairly often, it is showing signs of paranoia and provoking fear. When George W. as elected, there were many protesters, they were just hidden away in “free speech” zones. Of course there are many unhappy people, as there were in 2000, and every election. Trumps votes were less than 19% of the 325 million people in the country. Will Trump bring jobs. No, not unless they are gov’t employees, or funded by taxes. There is only one way jobs are created, and that is when there is demand for products and services. A lot of people with their low paying jobs can hardly afford the basic necessities, let alone keep playing the consumerism game. I cannot see Obama doing anything that requires legislation, as he is lame duck status now. Perhaps this site needs to focus on the swamp getting filled with more careerists, especially lobbyists I have been an expat for over 6 years, it is a lovely peaceful warm day here. Think I will go for a bicycle ride, then a dip in 86 degree seawater. I do have faith that not much will change and the sun will continue to rise, even when it is obscured by clouds. Peace and Love…it is the only way df NJ Obama’s big political move will be to appoint an ultra liberal judge to the bench during the recess. I just can’t imagine that he doesn’t leave office without punishing the Republicans for not taking Garland. And given all the threats to taking away all of Obama’s legacy this is the only thing left he has to make his mark on history. Rick I don’t think he can do that with a phone and pen. Sorry. HeyAHuman Could you imagine the pandemonium that would ensue if the Electoral College were to vote Hillary in? Then we’d be in a REAL danger zone… Mondobeyondo Yes, it would be. It would be like the Krakatoa volcano erupting again. df NJ That is not going to happen because the electors hate Hillary as much as you do. It would be like cutting off one of your own fingers with a kitchen knife. I think we are okay. anonymous It always amazes me that people will look for signs in anything. Remember the world was going to end in the year 2000? Then again in 2012 with the end of the Mayan Calendar. “Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security.” -John Allen Paulos df NJ It’s 11/18 and still no second coming of Jesus. Every single person reading this and posting on this board is going to be long dead and gone before Jesus returns. James Staten You just fulfilled prophecy, and you don’t even know it. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Peter+3%3A2-4&version=KJV Jerry C No longer need to look for signs as they are happening whether or not you’re looking. By the way, 2000 & 2012 were LSM saying it was ending. I guess for you the fact Trump will be 70 years 7 months 7 days old on his first full day of office is coincidence? You see coincidence; believers see signs. ISA41:10 Liberals have long since gone beyond Activism, and descended to mobs all acting like spoiled children, stamping their feet and screaming, “I want it NOW!” It’s the politics of juvenile delinquency. To be a liberal means you must lie, deceive, deflect and, as a last resort, attack a conservative. Liberalism is godlessness. df NJ You only criticize and hate on other people’s character what you do not like about your own character. Otherwise, if you are able to meet people as being sacred then all you have remaining is unconditional love and acceptance of other people’s flaws. Where does civility come from if not from having respect for opposing opinions? ISA41:10 The election is OVER!!!! These demonstrations mean nothing. These are bunch of winy liberals breaking laws. Did Conservative do these childish things in 08 or 12. N ! I wonder what Obama’s “Pardon List” looks like! JC Teecher Jesse “james” Jackson, a pawn for the left, is pushing hard to have hitlery pardoned for all her crimes, before she is even charged. As a crook himself, he has received a free pass because of his so called “religious” connections. Bull caca! Occult religions maybe. Mondobeyondo Yes, there is still a possibility that Hillary Clinton could still get in the Oval Office. But a Trump presidency is pretty much a done deal (knock on wood). The Secret Service had better guard him and his family VERY closely. From what I’ve seen and heard, President Obama is trying to make Trump’s transition to the presidency very peaceful and orderly (even though they hate each other). Let’s hope that Trump’s presidency will be a successful one, and that it heals the many divisions and other issues that plague our country. Back in 1985, I bought a brand new book called “The Art of the Deal” at my college bookstore. It was written by some guy named Donald Trump. Yes, I actually did read it. df NJ Not a chance. Hillary is dead and gone. Mondobeyondo Barack Obama is actually liberal enough to sign a resolution that would divide the land of Israel. Donald Trump would have to be pressured by outside forces to make such a decision. Would he do it? Don’t know. Although from what I’ve heard, President Putin of Russia likes Trump a lot… df NJ We dropped 23,000 bombs on five predominately Muslim countries in 2015. Maybe it’s time to give the Yinon plan a rest and stop bombing ragheads for Israel. America first! We have way too many problems and debt in this country to continue our foreign policies of American adventurism. Where’s Pat Buchanan when you need him? I think it’s time we return to a more traditional conservative approach to foreign policy. The long war does absolutely nothing to make me feel safer on the streets of Newark or Jersey City. I say eff ’em. America first! TheLulzWarrior Who f***ing cares? Israel is not an US state so far, they would simply refuse to go along such a plan. Paul Patriot Freedom loving Americans (should) know what needs to happen if hitlery is said to be el presidente on December 19th. The left can whine, shout, protest and riot……its time freedom loving Americans get the right mind set about standing up to tyranny……and apathy, passivity, fear and political correctness will prove ineffective. The liberty tree is getting mighty thirsty…..just saying! df NJ There are many forms of freedom. You criticize the left but you just don’t understand it. Here’s how the left thinks: “An old English judge once said: ‘Necessitous men are not free men.’ Liberty requires opportunity to make a living – a living decent according to the standard of the time, a living which gives man not only enough to live by, but something to live for. “For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people’s property, other people’s money, other people’s labor – other people’s lives. For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness. Against economic tyranny such as this, the American citizen could appeal only to the organized power of government. ” You many not agree with this approach but ALL the evidence shows wealth inequality is at all time highs. Most of you right wingers claim we have too much socialism and communism in this country. The sad fact is we cannot be further way from communism and still have a currency with any shred of value. But do not fear. Every year the top 1% become richer and richer. Every year the middle class is driven deeper and deeper into poverty wages. Marx said laissez faire capitialism is always followed by communism because unfettered greed would result in a government’s currency collapse. Once the currency collapses people in bread lines will DEMAND more government not less. See you in the breadlines comrades! хорошего дня JC Teecher It is fairly evident that B Hussein Odrama is spewing his NWO rhetoric and propaganda overseas, as he attempts to assume the role of the world’s authoritarian. He was handpicked by the biggest Nazi since Hitler, behind the scenes, as in GHW Bush. Odrama was chosen by the underworld as a successor to GHWB, and billery. Why? To fulfill their occultic destiny of the Beast System of Gov, Religion, Education, and Economics. The four hidden Dynasties. also viewed as Die-Nasty, if one is part of it. Anything is possible in the next two months, and with the huge amounts of $$ invested into continuing an evil empire, the underworld/shadow gov, will use any and all means to make their plans come to fruition. All we as Christians can do is prepare for the worst, and pray for the “will” of God, to become manifest for His purpose, pleasure, and fulfillment of the end of days, of this age. The time of the fulfillment of a 100 year generation since the planting of the Fig Tree/ House of Judah, in Israel, is drawing nigh. Christ said the generation that sees it (nation of Israel) replanted in the Covenant land, will also see His return. Glory glory Hallelujah, we might just get out of this world………alive. Not fly away in a pre-trib rapture (trap), but change in the twinkling of an eye, here, in this earth, to be a part of the “Kingdom come, on Earth as it is in Heaven”. df NJ We just need to stop dropping bombs on ragheads and God will shower us with blessings. Guns or butter, choose. You get one or the other. Black Wow. I hope there is such a place as hell so scum like you can burn there for eternity Jerry C