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PARIS, France: Front National legislative candidate Aymeric Durox has exclusively revealed to Breitbart London the new name of the Front National could be “Les Patriotes” or the Patriots. [Mr. Durox said the name change, which was talked about on Sunday evening following the defeat of migration candidate Marine Le Pen, is likely to be Les Patriotes citing the office of vice president of the party Florian Philippot registering the name in 2015. “I know that the director of the cabinet of Florian Philippot filed the name ‘Les Patriotes’ in April 2015, perhaps already with the prospect of a name change, but nothing is sure,” he told Breitbart London. He said the legacy of the name Front National still “scared off” some voters and a name change and rebranding could bring more people into the movement. The Front National, or perhaps soon Les Patriotes, are challenging the establishment parties in next month’s French legislative elections. Mr. Durox, who is standing in Paris, said all the establishment candidates he is facing are old and have out of date ideas. “I shall incarnate the true change of my generation,” said the who is a history and geography teacher. Durox was dismissive of his opponents saying they “have the presumption to pretend that they represent a real alternative”. The Front National is expected to win a minimum of 15 seats in the upcoming election, though some have forecast they could gain as many as 50 seats in the French National Assembly. Durox said the party should look toward forming a group in the assembly, which would take at least 15 deputies, in order to be able to have more time to speak in the chamber and have more influence. “In any case 50 [deputies] would be a good number, especially if we are superior in numbers to the Socialist party,” he added. Currently, the Front National has two members in the assembly, one of which is Marion Pen who recently announced her resignation from politics following the presidential election. Pen said she wanted more time to spend with her young daughter away from the stresses of political life. “When a brave leader leaves his troops it is always very sad, but she is very young and we are sure that she will come back even stronger,” Durox said in reaction to the news of Pen’s decision. He added: “The future belongs to her. ” Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson@breitbart. com

by ANYA V Oregano oil is the ultimate antibiotic. Oregano is a powerful herb with unique healing properties. Did you know that oregano has eight times more antioxidants than apples and three times as much as blueberries? Antioxidants are needed to protect our body against free radical damage. They boost the immune-system naturally. Oregano Oil is the most potent plant oil in the world! The distribution of oregano oil started in Ancient Greece. In Greek the word oregano is translated as joy of the mountains . The Greeks were first to use oil for medicinal purposes, such as a powerful antiviral, antibacterial, antiseptic, antifungal agent and also as a remedy for pain, and inflammation. It was the main antibacterial tool used by Hippocrates. Oregano leaves were traditionally used to treat illnesses related to the respiratory and digestive systems. Oregano Oil is The Ultimate Antibiotic Main Ingredients: Oregano Essential Oil is a mineral density powerhouse. It contains calcium, magnesium, zinc, iron, potassium, copper, boron, manganese, vitamins C, A (beta-carotene), Niacin. Oregano oil contains four main groups of chemicals which are active healing agents. Phenols including carvacrol and thymol. They act as antiseptics and antioxidants. Terpenes including pinene and terpinene. They possess antiseptic, antiviral, anti-inflammatory and anesthetic properties. Linalool and bonreol are two long-chain alcohols found in oregano oil. They exhibit antiviral and antiseptic properties. Esters include linalyl acetate and geranyl acetate. They exhibit antifungal properties. Although all these compounds possess healing properties, the most significant primary compound found in oregano oil is carvacrol. Scientific research has proved carvacrol to be one of the most effective antibiotics known to science. Not All Oregano Oil is Created Equal Real wild Mediteranean Oregano needs to be either of origanum vulgare kind, or Thymus capitatus , which mostly grows in Spain. It is very important to make sure the Oil of Oregano is derived from these two kinds. It also has to have the carvacrol concentration of 70% or more. Most importantly, oregano essential oil does not create harmful strains in the body and does not have side effects the pharmaceutical antibiotics do. Moreover, it is effective against a dangerous and even deadly bacteria, but does not produce biological changes in the body. Oregano essential oil nourishes the body and doesn’t deplete it of nutrients like conventional antibiotics do. And if you look at the statistics, people in the Mediterranean live longer for the most part. Maybe partly because of oregano which is added to most Mediterranean dishes!

You know how people have been wondering if Michael Flynn has been turned? Well, the Wall Street Journal confirms that Trump s former national security advisor has agreed to testify before Congress in exchange for just one little thing full immunity from prosecution.Just after news broke that an associate of Mr. Flynn s was one of Trump stooge Devin Nunes sources for the specious secretly-gathered information with which the alleged Trump investigation leader found himself after a middle-of-the-night rendezvous on White House grounds, news broke that Flynn is ready to talk:Mike Flynn, President Donald Trump s former national security adviser, has told the Federal Bureau of Investigation and congressional officials investigating the Trump campaign s potential ties to Russia that he is willing to be interviewed in exchange for a grant of immunity from prosecution, according to officials with knowledge of the matter.As an adviser to Mr. Trump s presidential campaign, and later one of Mr. Trump s top aides in the White House, Mr. Flynn was privy to some of the most sensitive foreign-policy deliberations of the new administration and was directly involved in discussions about the possible lifting of sanctions on Russia imposed by the Obama administration.It seems like Mr. Flynn has been naughty with the Russians, but whatever information he has is something he considers to be of much higher value. While we of course do not yet know what secrets Flynn is currently keeping about the Trump administration s collusion with Russia, it seems safe to assume that this is news The Donald does not want to get out.Naturally, the internet is loving this new development:Michael Flynn should probably stay away from ledges, balconies, pie shops, the back seats of cars, swimming pools, bridges, taco trucks Wil Wheaton (@wilw) March 30, 2017Flynn just asked for a deal. This is getting very interesting! pic.twitter.com/I2xlIwyFxO (((DanielM.Potter))) (@PotterOnPoltics) March 30, 2017@costareports So, if I've got this right, Michael Flynn is going to be the David Wildstein of Russiagate. Kathleen Martin (@ruralfabulous) March 30, 2017 @Lawrence Looks like trumps administration just died, Flynn cut a deal. Nana Nana Nana Nana hey hey hey goodbye .. Coral Anderson (@CoralAnderson20) March 30, 2017@realDonaldTrump Flynn flipped! You and your family are going to prison. Lockup: Mar-a-Lago (@OutHouseAtty) March 30, 2017This is a dark day for the Trump administration but a good one for the rest of us who want to be rid of the bloated tangerine Manchurian couch potato currently living in the White House.Featured image via Getty Images (Chip Somodevilla)

In formulating a new executive order limiting travel to the United States, President Donald Trump has promised to make the directive harder to fight successfully in court than the one he issued in January. One way the administration will likely try to do that, legal experts say, is to shape the order more narrowly to undercut the opportunity for states and other opponents to sue by showing courts they have “standing,” or the ability to argue the president’s order causes them harm. But legal experts said a new order, which a White House source said was expected this week, was unlikely to fully eliminate the ability of challengers to pursue legal actions. More than two dozen lawsuits were filed in U.S. courts against the initial travel ban, which temporarily barred travelers from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. In one case, which ultimately got the order temporarily suspended, the state of Washington claimed standing in part because the ban affected Washington residents living and working legally in the United States as permanent residents known as green card holders. By excluding legal permanent residents from a new order, something the administration has said is likely, the president would make it harder for opponents to challenge the ban. Larry Klayman, founder of the conservative advocacy group Freedom Watch, said that with a narrower order, legal standing could be a real problem for potential challengers. “If you’re not a citizen, or if you’re not a permanent resident, you have no constitutional rights,” Klayman said. Trump has said travel limitations are necessary to protect the United States from attacks by Islamist militants. Americans were deeply divided over the measure, which had some support but was condemned by prominent U.S. companies and allies. The initial order caused chaos at airports, as people, including green card holders initially, were temporarily blocked from entering the United States. Some of those people, and several states, challenged the order. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, ruling in the Washington case, said the ban likely violated the state’s due process rights and suspended it. The 9th Circuit also ruled that Washington had legal standing to challenge the ban, over objections from the Department of Justice. Stephen Legomsky, former chief counsel for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services under President Barack Obama, said a narrower ban “weakens the arguments for standing but doesn’t entirely eliminate them.” Legomsky noted that, “in general the Constitution does not apply to people outside the United States, but that is not iron clad.” A U.S. citizen whose spouse was barred from visiting by the order, for instance, could argue that he or she had standing to challenge it. Or a state university might argue that the order negatively affected it. In its ruling, the 9th Circuit said Washington state had standing because it was harmed by Trump’s order, specifically noting that faculty at the state’s universities from those seven countries would be prohibited from traveling for research or academic collaboration. “The universities’ reputations depend on the success of their professors’ research,” the court wrote. The one thing legal experts on all sides of the issue agree on is that the new order will be challenged in courts. “No matter what they do there will be litigation,” said Stephen Yale-Loehr. He said he thinks it likely challengers will be able to establish standing, leaving the courts to decide whether the ban is legal. At that point, Yale-Loehr says, the wording of the new order will become crucial. “If they limit the executive order to people who have never been to the U.S. before, they might win on the merits eventually,” he said.

An operation conducted by U.S. Army in Europe during the exercise ”Swift Response 2019”, is presented as a preparation for an assault on the Moldovan breakaway region of Transnistria.  

Marseille soap, or Savon de Marseille, is as French as wine and cheese, with a history that dates from the Middle Ages. Frenchwomen swear by the crude square blocks, which they use as a natural skin cleanser and, in a pinch, as anything from a toothpaste substitute to a moth repellent. In recent years, though, cheap Chinese and Turkish knockoffs have been flooding the market, and the soapmakers of Marseille are rallying to protect their product’s reputation. They banded together recently to ask the French government to grant them a label of authenticity, to distinguish the genuine stuff from the imitators. And that is where the trouble really began. The original Marseille soap had a specific recipe that was considered so sacred that Louis XIV protected it with a royal edict. But a battle has erupted between two soapmaking factions over exactly what the modern rules should be for what constitutes a true Marseille soap. On one side are the soapmasters, based mainly in the Mediterranean port that gave the soap its name. They say that the label of authenticity should go only to products made strictly by the original Louis recipe. It’s quite a process, involving heating a mix of soda ash, seawater and olive oil in large caldrons for several days, and then cooling it in open pits. The finished soap is and odorless. On the other side are a group of 12 large companies, including L’Occitane, a global chain retailer of body and fragrance products. They want the government to certify their recipe, which allows the use of cheaper vegetable oils along with additives and perfumes to produce scented soap bars in a rainbow of colors. “The ancient recipe is outmoded,” said Emilie Grangeon, the general secretary of the Association of Makers of Savon de Marseille, which represents the companies. “We should be able to improve the quality. ” Each side is refusing to talk to the other, while trying to convince the government that its recipe should win. The government, for its part, is using its own method to delay a decision: It has set up an investigative panel that is to deliver a recommendation in September.

@conniebritton #ohh!! Connie I wish so you can retweed me back

Whenever big news happens in Washington, the nation (at least those in desperate need of entertainment) awaits the response of just one man: Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas). Gohmert almost never disappoints with the depth of his stupidity and he certainly didn t on Thursday, when he yelled at the Democratic Congresspeople who were conducting a sit-in in support of gun control.The sit-in lasted a bit over 24 hours, and it was in protest to the four failed attempts at gun control in the Senate and of Speaker Paul Ryan s (R-Wisconsin) refusal to even let a gun control measure get a debate or vote.Gohmert, who received more than $13,000 in contributions from the National Rifle Association, thought the Congresspeople were protesting the wrong thing. According to him, Islam is responsible for our country s mass shootings. We are talking about radical Islam! Gohmert yelled, waving his finger at posters featuring photos of the victims of the recent mass shooting at an Orlando, Florida gay club. Radical Islam killed these people! Gohmert was shouted down by Democrats chanting, No fly, no gun! and Don t let terrorists have a gun! Source: Talking Points MemoSure, we can call our gun problem a terrorism problem. G-d knows it s terrifying Americans, but it s not a Muslim problem. The vast majority of mass shooters are white men without a political agenda. As we learn more and more about the Orlando shooter, we are coming to realize that his association to terrorism is sketchy at best. Instead, it seems, he was a spurned self-hating gay man.If that s the case, that he is a self-loathing gay man and that s all the shooting was about, that indicates a societal problem one which Gohmert, a man who seems to obsess over whether being gay is God s will is at least partially responsible for. The bigger picture, though, is that all of our mass shootings, as a matter of fact, all of our nation s shootings period, have one thing in common and that s guns. In our current political climate, there isn t a chance in hell that people will give up all guns, but there s a chance, albeit a slim one, that maybe we could stop the sale of assault weapons to violent people. That s all Congress wants.Featured image via Chip Somodevilla at Getty Images.

Before the United States permitted a terrifying way of interrogating prisoners, government lawyers and intelligence officials assured themselves of one crucial outcome. They knew that the methods inflicted on terrorism suspects would be painful, shocking and far beyond what the country had ever accepted. But none of it, they concluded, would cause long lasting psychological harm. Fifteen years later, it is clear they were wrong. Today in Slovakia, Hussein describes permanent headaches and disturbed sleep, plagued by memories of dogs inside a blackened jail. In Kazakhstan, Lutfi bin Ali is haunted by nightmares of suffocating at the bottom of a well. In Libya, the radio from a passing car spurs rage in Majid Mokhtar Sasy reminding him of the C. I. A. prison where earsplitting music was just one assault to his senses. And then there is the despair of men who say they are no longer themselves. “I am living this kind of depression,” said Younous Chekkouri, a Moroccan, who fears going outside because he sees faces in crowds as Guantánamo Bay guards. “I’m not normal anymore. ” After enduring agonizing treatment in secret C. I. A. prisons around the world or coercive practices at the military detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, dozens of detainees developed persistent mental health problems, according to previously undisclosed medical records, government documents and interviews with former prisoners and military and civilian doctors. Some emerged with the same symptoms as American prisoners of war who were brutalized decades earlier by some of the world’s cruelest regimes. Those subjected to the tactics included victims of mistaken identity or flimsy evidence that the United States later disavowed. Others were foot soldiers for the Taliban or Al Qaeda who were later deemed to pose little threat. Some were hardened terrorists, including those accused of plotting the Sept. 11 attacks or the 2000 bombing of the American destroyer Cole. In several cases, their mental status has complicated the nation’s long effort to bring them to justice. Americans have long debated the legacy of . 11 interrogation methods, asking whether they amounted to torture or succeeded in extracting intelligence. But even as President Obama continues transferring people from Guantánamo and Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, promises to bring back techniques, now banned, such as waterboarding, the human toll has gone largely uncalculated. At least half of the 39 people who went through the C. I. A. ’s “enhanced interrogation” program, which included depriving them of sleep, dousing them with ice water, slamming them into walls and locking them in boxes, have since shown psychiatric problems, The New York Times found. Some have been diagnosed with stress disorder, paranoia, depression or psychosis. Hundreds more detainees moved through C. I. A. “black sites” or Guantánamo, where the military inflicted sensory deprivation, isolation, menacing with dogs and other tactics on men who now show serious damage. Nearly all have been released. “There is no question that these tactics were entirely inconsistent with our values as Americans, and their consequences present lasting challenges for us as a country and for the individuals involved,” said Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser. The United States government has never studied the psychological effects of the extraordinary interrogation practices it embraced. A Defense Department spokeswoman, asked about mental harm, responded that prisoners were treated humanely and had access to excellent care. A C. I. A. spokesman declined to comment. This article is based on a broad sampling of cases and an examination of hundreds of documents, including court records, military commission transcripts and medical assessments. The Times interviewed more than 100 people, including former detainees in a dozen countries. A full accounting is all but impossible because many former prisoners never had access to outside doctors or lawyers, and any records about their interrogation treatment and health status remain classified. Researchers caution that it can be difficult to determine cause and effect with mental illness. Some prisoners of the C. I. A. and the military had underlying psychological problems that may have made them more susceptible to difficulties others appeared to have been remarkably resilient. Incarceration, particularly the indefinite detention without charges that the United States devised, is inherently stressful. Still, outside medical consultants and former government officials said they saw a pattern connecting the harsh practices to psychiatric issues. Those treating prisoners at Guantánamo for mental health issues typically did not ask their patients what had happened during their questioning. Some physicians, though, saw evidence of mental harm almost immediately. “My staff was dealing with the consequences of the interrogations without knowing what was going on,” said Albert J. Shimkus, a retired Navy captain who served as the commanding officer of the Guantánamo hospital in the prison’s early years. Back then, still reeling from the Sept. 11 attacks, the government was desperate to stave off more. But Captain Shimkus now regrets not making more inquiries. “There was a conflict,” he said, “between our medical duty to our patients and our duty to the mission, as soldiers. ” After prisoners were released from American custody, some found neither help nor relief. Mohammed Abdullah Saleh a businessman in Tanzania, and others were snatched, interrogated and imprisoned, then sent home without explanation. They returned to their families deeply scarred from interrogations, isolation and the shame of sexual taunts, forced nudity, aggressive body cavity searches and being kept in diapers. Mr. Asad, who died in May, was held for more than a year in several secret C. I. A. prisons. “Sometimes, between husband and wife, he would admit to how awful he felt,” his widow, Zahra Mohamed, wrote in a statement prepared for the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. “He was humiliated, and that feeling never went away. ” In a cold room once used for interrogations at Guantánamo, Stephen N. Xenakis, a former military psychiatrist, faced a onetime Qaeda child soldier, Omar Khadr. It was December 2008, and this evaluation had been two years in the making. The doctor, a retired brigadier general who had overseen several military hospitals, had not sought the assignment. The son of an Air Force combat veteran, he debated even accepting it. “I’m still a soldier,” General Xenakis recalls thinking. Was this good for the country? When he finally agreed, he told Mr. Khadr’s lawyers that they were paying for an independent medical opinion, not a hired gun. Mr. Khadr, a Canadian citizen, had been wounded and captured in a firefight at age 15 at a suspected terrorist compound in Afghanistan, where he said he had been sent to translate for foreign fighters by his father, a Qaeda member. Years later, he would plead guilty to war crimes, including throwing a grenade that killed an Army medic. At the time, though, he was the youngest prisoner at Guantánamo. He told his lawyers that the American soldiers had kept him from sleeping, spit in his face and threatened him with rape. In one meeting with the psychiatrist, Mr. Khadr, then 22, began to sweat and fan himself, despite the chill. He tugged his shirt off, and General Xenakis realized that he was witnessing an anxiety attack. When it happened again, Mr. Khadr explained that he had once urinated during an interrogation and soldiers had dragged him through the mess. “This is the room where they used me as a human mop,” he said. General Xenakis had seen such anxiety before, decades earlier, as a young psychiatrist at Letterman Army Medical Center in California. It was often the first stop for American prisoners of war after they left Vietnam. The doctor recalled the men, who had endured horrific abuses, suffering panic attacks, headaches and psychotic episodes. That session with Mr. Khadr was the beginning of General Xenakis’s immersion into the treatment of detainees. He has reviewed medical and interrogation records of about 50 current and former prisoners and examined about 15 of the detainees, more than any other outside psychiatrist, colleagues say. General Xenakis found that Mr. Khadr had stress disorder, a conclusion the military contested. Many of General Xenakis’s diagnoses in other cases remain classified or sealed by court order, but he said he consistently found links between harsh American interrogation methods and psychiatric disorders. Back home in Virginia, General Xenakis delved into research on the effects of abusive practices. He found decades of papers on the issue — science that had not been considered when the government began crafting new interrogation policies after Sept. 11. At the end of the Vietnam War, military doctors noticed that former prisoners of war developed psychiatric disorders far more often than other soldiers, an observation also made of former P. O. W.s from World War II and the Korean War. The data could not be explained by imprisonment alone, researchers found. Former soldiers who suffered torture or mistreatment were more likely than others to develop problems. By the the Veterans Administration had linked such treatment to memory loss, an exaggerated startle reflex, horrific nightmares, headaches and an inability to concentrate. Studies noted similar symptoms among torture survivors in South Africa, Turkey and Chile. Such research helped lay the groundwork for how American doctors now treat combat veterans. “In hindsight, that should have come to the fore” in the . 11 interrogation debate, said John Rizzo, the C. I. A. ’s top lawyer at the time. “I don’t think the effects were ever explored in any real depth. ” Instead, the government relied on data from a training program to resist enemy interrogators, called SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape. The military concluded there was little evidence that disrupted sleep, nudity and extreme temperatures harmed military trainees in controlled scenarios. Two veteran SERE psychologists, James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, worked with the C. I. A. and the Pentagon to help develop interrogation tactics. They based their strategies in part on the theory of “learned helplessness,” a phrase coined by the American psychologist Martin E. P. Seligman in the late 1960s. He gave electric shocks to dogs and discovered that they stopped resisting once they learned they could not stop the shocks. If the United States could make men helpless, the thinking went, they would give up their secrets. In the end, Justice Department lawyers concluded that the methods did not constitute torture, which is illegal under American and international law. In a series of memos, they wrote that no evidence existed that “significant psychological harm of significant duration, e. g. lasting for months or even years” would result. With fear of another terrorist attack, there was little incentive or time to find contrary evidence, Mr. Rizzo said. “The government wanted a solution,” he recalled. “It wanted a path to get these guys to talk. ” The question of what ultimately happened to Dr. Seligman’s dogs never arose in the legal debate. They were strays, and once the studies were over, they were euthanized. Mohamed Ben Soud cannot say for certain when the Americans began using ice water to torment him. The C. I. A. prison in Afghanistan, known as the Salt Pit, was perpetually dark, so the days passed imperceptibly. The United States called the treatment “water dousing,” but the term belies the grisly details. Mr. Ben Soud, in court documents and interviews, described being forced onto a plastic tarp while naked, his hands shackled above his head. Sometimes he was hooded. One C. I. A. official poured buckets of ice water on him as others lifted the tarp’s corners, sending water splashing over him and causing a choking or drowning sensation. He said he endured the treatment multiple times. Mr. Ben Soud was among the early captives in the C. I. A. ’s network of prisons in Afghanistan, Thailand, Poland, Romania and Lithuania. Again and again, he said, he told the American interrogators that he was not their enemy. A Libyan, he said he had fled to Pakistan in 1991 and joined an armed Islamist movement aimed at toppling Col. Muammar ’s dictatorship. Pakistani and United States officials stormed his home and arrested him in 2003. Under interrogation, he said, he denied knowing or fighting with Osama bin Laden or two senior Qaeda operatives. In 2004, the C. I. A. turned Mr. Ben Soud over to Libya, which imprisoned him until the United States helped topple the Qaddafi government seven years later. In interviews, he and other Libyans said they were treated better by Colonel Qaddafi’s jailers than by the C. I. A. Today, Mr. Ben Soud, 47, is a free man, but said he is in constant fear of tomorrow. He is racked with and struggles to make simple decisions. His moods swing dramatically. “‘Dad, why did you suddenly get angry?’ ‘Why did you suddenly snap? ’” Mr. Ben Soud said his children ask. “‘Did we do anything that made you angry? ’” Explaining would mean saying that the Americans kept him shackled in painful contortions, or that they locked him in boxes — one the size of a coffin, the other even smaller, he said in a phone interview from his home in Misurata, Libya. They slammed him against the wall and chained him from the ceiling as the prison echoed with the sounds of rock music. “How can you explain such things to children?” he asked. Mr. Ben Soud, along with a second former C. I. A. prisoner and the estate of a third, is suing Dr. Mitchell and Dr. Jessen in federal court, accusing them of violating his rights by torturing him. In court documents, Dr. Mitchell and Dr. Jessen argue, among other things, that they played no role in the interrogations. Mr. Ben Soud was one of the men identified in a 2014 Senate Intelligence Committee report as having been subjected to the C. I. A. ’s “enhanced interrogation techniques. ” Condemning the methods as brutal and ineffective in extracting intelligence, the report noted that interrogators also used unapproved tactics such as mock executions, threats to harm prisoners’ children or rape their family members, and “rectal feeding,” which involved inserting liquid food supplements or purées into the rectum. Senate investigators did not set out to study the psychological consequences of the harsh treatment, but their unclassified summary revealed several cases of men suffering hallucinations, depression, paranoia and other symptoms. The full classified report offers many more examples, said Daniel Jones, a former F. B. I. analyst who led the Senate investigation. “The records we reviewed clearly indicate a connection between their treatment in C. I. A. custody and their mental state,” Mr. Jones said in an interview. At least 119 men moved through the C. I. A. jails, where the interrogations were designed to disrupt the senses and increase helplessness — factors that researchers decades earlier had said could make people more susceptible to psychological harm. Forced nudity, sensory deprivation and endless light or dark were considered routine. Many of those men were later released without charges, unsure of why they were held. About one in four prisoners should never have been captured, or turned out to have been misidentified by the C. I. A. Senate investigators concluded. Khaled a German citizen, is the best known case. Macedonian authorities arrested him while he was on vacation in December 2003 and turned him over to the C. I. A. Mr. Masri said officials beat him, stripped him, forced a suppository into him and flew him to a black site in Afghanistan. He was held for months, he said, in a concrete cell with no bed, and endured more beatings and interrogations. Years later, Mr. Masri’s nightmares are accompanied by a paralyzing tightness in his chest, he said. “I have been suffering from amnesia, inability to memorize, depression, helplessness, apathy, loss of interest in the future, slow thinking, and anxiety,” Mr. Masri wrote in an email. Ms. Mohamed, the widow of Mr. Asad, the Tanzanian businessman, said he returned home paranoid and anxious. “He used to forget things that he never would have forgotten before,” she wrote recently. “For example, he would talk with someone on the phone and later forget to whom he had been talking. ” Mr. Asad believed the C. I. A. seized him because he once rented space in a building he owned to Al Haramain Foundation, a Saudi charity later linked to financing terrorism. Interrogators questioned him repeatedly about the charity, he said in legal papers, then released him with no explanation. “Mohammed’s personality changed after his detention,” his wife wrote. “Something tiny would happen and he would blow up — he would be so angry — I had never ever seen him like this before. At these times, he would come close to crying, and he would withdraw to be alone. ” Today at Guantánamo Bay, the Caribbean landscape is reclaiming the relics of the American detention system. Weeds overtake fences in abandoned areas of the prison complex. Guard towers sit empty. It is eerily quiet. President Obama banned coercive questioning on his second day in office and his administration has whittled the prison population to 61, down from nearly 700 at its peak. Interrogations ended long ago. Except for the detainees, kept in a building hidden in the hills, most of the remaining prisoners share a concrete jail called Camp 6. Asked about their psychological Rear Adm. Peter J. Clarke, the commander at Guantánamo, said in an interview: “What I observe are detainees who are well adjusted, and I see no indications of ill effects of anything that may have happened in the past. ” In the early years of Guantánamo, interrogators used variations on some of the C. I. A. ’s tactics. The result was a combination of psychological and physical pressure that the International Committee of the Red Cross found was “tantamount to torture. ” Capt. Richard Quattrone of the Navy, who left his post as the prison’s chief medical officer in September, said his staff mostly dealt with detainees’ anxiety over whether they would be released. “I’ve talked to some of my predecessors,” he said in an interview, “and from what they say, it’s vastly different today. ” About 20 detainees are cleared for release. Another 10 are being prosecuted or have already been convicted in military commissions. The fate of the remaining men, including some of the prisoners, is unclear. For now they are considered too dangerous to release, but have not been charged. For some men who have been released, Guantánamo is not easily left behind. Mr. Chekkouri, a Moroccan living in Afghanistan in 2001, was held for years as a suspected member of a group linked to Al Qaeda. He said he was beaten repeatedly at a United States military jail in Kandahar and forced to watch soldiers do the same to his younger brother. Mr. Chekkouri is a Sufi, a member of a mystical Islamic sect that has been oppressed by Al Qaeda and others. At Guantánamo, he was kept in isolation. When he asserted his innocence, he said, interrogators threatened to turn him over to the Moroccan authorities, who have a history of torture. The Americans warned that his family in Morocco could be jailed and abused, he said, and showed him execution photos. Interrogators repeatedly made him believe his transfer was imminent, he said. “It’s time to say goodbye,” interrogation files cited in court documents say. “Morocco wants you back. ” After he was released last year, the United States gave him a letter saying it no longer stood by information that he was a member of a group in Morocco. Despite diplomatic assurances that he would face no charges, Morocco jailed him for several months late last year and he continues to fight allegations that he thought were behind him. Now, he is under a psychiatrist’s care and takes antidepressants and drugs. He complains of flashbacks, persistent nightmares and panic attacks. He also suffers an embarrassing inability to urinate until it becomes painful. It started, he said, when he was left chained for hours during interrogations and soiled himself. His doctors say there is nothing they can treat. “They tell me everything is normal,” he said. “Your brain is playing games. It is something mental. You’re still living in Gitmo. It’s fear. ” Mr. Chekkouri saw psychiatrists at Guantánamo, but he said he did not trust them. He and others believed the doctors shared information about medical problems with interrogators. In one case, a psychiatrist prescribed the antipsychotic medication olanzapine to a prisoner. He then suggested that interrogators exploit a side effect, food cravings, according to another military doctor who later reviewed the records. Normally, such information would be confidential, but Guantánamo’s dual missions of caring for prisoners and extracting information created conflicts. Over time, the military created two mental health teams. One, led by psychiatrists, was there to heal. The other, called the Behavioral Science Consultation Team, was led by psychologists with a very different mission. On Sept. 3, 2003, after a teenager named Mohammed Jawad was seen talking to a poster on the wall, an interrogator called for a consultation with a BSCT (pronounced “Biscuit”) psychologist. Mohammed’s age at the time is in dispute. The military says it captured him at 17 his lawyer says he was more likely 14 or younger. However old, he was pleading for his mother. When the psychologist arrived, the goal was not to ease the young man’s distress, but to exploit it. “The detainee comes across as a very immature, dependent individual, claiming to miss his mother and his young siblings, but his demeanor looks like it is a resistance technique,” the psychologist wrote, according to notes seen by The Times. “He tries to look as if he is so sad that he is depressed. During today’s interrogation, he appeared to be rather frightened, and it looks as if he could easily break. ” The psychologist, who was not identified in the notes, recommended that Mr. Jawad be kept away from anyone who spoke his language. “Make him as uncomfortable as possible,” the psychologist advised. “Work him as hard as possible. ” The guards placed him in isolation for 30 days. They then subjected him to the “frequent flier program,” a method of sleep deprivation. Guards yanked Mr. Jawad from cell to cell 112 times, waking him an average of every three hours, day and night, for two weeks straight, according to court records. After being held for years, Mr. Jawad was charged in 2007 with throwing a grenade that wounded American soldiers. But the evidence collapsed. The military prosecutor, Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld, withdrew from the case and declared that there was no evidence to justify charges. “There is, however, reliable evidence that he was badly mistreated by U. S. authorities, both in Afghanistan and at Guantánamo, and he has suffered, and continues to suffer, great psychological harm,” he wrote in a letter to the court. Katherine Porterfield, a New York University psychologist, found Mr. Jawad to have PTSD after examining him in 2009. Seven years after his capture, she said, he suffered from flashbacks and anxiety attacks. A panel of military doctors disagreed. Medical records from Guantánamo include repeated notes such as “no psych issues at this time,” or the prisoner “denied any psych problem. ” The military dropped all charges against Mr. Jawad, who is now living in Pakistan. He declined to discuss his mental health. But in a series of text messages, he wrote: “They tortured us in jails, gave us severe physical and mental pain, bombarded our villages, cities, mosques, schools. ” He added, “Of course we have” flashbacks, panic attacks and nightmares. It has been difficult to determine the scale of mental health problems at Guantánamo, much less how many cases are linked to the treatment the prisoners endured. Most medical records remain classified. Anecdotal accounts, though, have emerged over the years. Andy Davidson, a retired Navy captain who served as the chief psychologist treating prisoners at Guantánamo from July to October 2003, said most appeared to be in good health, but he still saw “an awful lot” of mental health issues there. “There were definitely guys who had PTSD symptoms,” he said in an interview. “There were definitely guys who had poor sleeping, nightmares. There were guys who were definitely shell shocked with a stare. There were guys who were depressed, avoidant. ” One of the few official glimpses into the population came in a 2006 medical journal article. Two military psychologists and a psychiatrist at Guantánamo wrote that about 11 percent of detainees were then receiving mental health services, a rate lower than that in civilian jails or among former American prisoners of war. The authors acknowledged, however, that Guantánamo doctors faced significant challenges in diagnosing mental illness, most notably the difficulty in building trust. Many prisoners, including some with serious mental health conditions, refused evaluation and treatment, the study noted, which would have lowered the count. Five years later, General Xenakis and Vincent Iacopino, the medical director for Physicians for Human Rights, published research about nine prisoners who exhibited psychological symptoms after undergoing interrogation tactics — a hose forced into a mouth, a head held in a toilet, death threats — by American jailers. The two based their study on the medical records and interrogation files of the prisoners, all of whom had arrived at Guantánamo in its first year, had never been in C. I. A. custody, and were never charged with any crimes. In none of those cases, the study said, did Guantánamo doctors document any inquiries into whether the symptoms were tied to interrogation tactics. Today in Tangier, Morocco, Ahmed Errachidi runs two restaurants, has a wife and five children and has been free for nearly a decade. The United States military once asserted that he trained at a Qaeda camp in early 2001, but the human rights group Reprieve later produced pay stubs showing that he had been working at the time as a cook in London. Mr. Errachidi had a history of bipolar disorder before arriving at Guantánamo, and after being held in isolation there, he said, he suffered a psychotic breakdown. He told interrogators that he had been Bin Laden’s superior officer and warned that a giant snowball would overtake the world. Guantánamo still lurks around corners. Recently, at a market in Tangier, the clink of a chain caused a paralyzing flashback to the prison, where Mr. Errachidi was forced into painful stress positions, deprived of sleep and isolated. On chilly nights, when the blanket slips off, he is once again lying naked in a frigid cell, waiting for his next interrogation. “All I can think of is when are they going to take me back,” Mr. Errachidi said in an interview. He compared his treatment by the Americans to being mugged by a trusted friend. “It is very, very scary when you are tortured by someone who doesn’t believe in torture,” he said. “You lose faith in everything. ” Guantánamo, particularly during its early years, operated on a system of rewards and punishments to exploit prisoners’ vulnerabilities. That manipulation, taken to extremes, could have dangerous effects, as in the peculiar case of Tarek El Sawah. An Egyptian who said he was a Taliban soldier, Mr. Sawah was captured while fleeing bombing in Afghanistan in 2001 and turned over to the United States. He arrived at Guantánamo in May 2002. Though his brother, Jamal, said he had no history of mental problems, Mr. Sawah began shrieking at night, terrified by hallucinations. When he began defecating and urinating on himself, soldiers would hose him down in front of other detainees, a nearby prisoner stated in court documents. Mr. Sawah said he was given antipsychotic drugs, sometimes forcibly. After his breakdown, interrogators found Mr. Sawah eager to talk. “‘Bring me good things to eat,’” he told them. They delivered McDonald’s hamburgers or Subway sandwiches, multiple servings at a time. Mr. Sawah became a prized informant, though the value of what he offered is disputed, and he says he fabricated stories, including that he was a Qaeda member. He ballooned from about 215 pounds to well over 400 pounds, records show. When the interrogations ended and he was placed in a special hut for cooperators, the food kept coming. His jailers had to install a door for him. Mr. Sawah called it a competition between the interrogators, who used food as an incentive, and the doctors, who told him to lose weight. He developed coronary artery disease, diabetes, breathing disorders and other health problems, court records show. In 2013, General Xenakis examined him and, in a plea for better medical treatment, told a judge that “Mr. El Sawah’s mental state has worsened and he appears apathetic with diminished will to live. ” The military responded that he was offered excellent medical care but refused it. Today in Bosnia, Mr. Sawah, 58, complains of frequent headaches and begs a doctor for antidepressants. His mood fluctuates wildly. Though he has lost weight, his eating remains compulsive. Over dinner with a reporter after a daily Ramadan fast, he ate a steak, French fries, a plate of dates and figs, a bowl of chicken soup, spinach pie, slices of bread, the uneaten portion of another steak, another bowl of soup, two lemonades, a Coke and nearly an entire cheese plate, six or seven slices at a time. “He’s unbalanced,” said his brother, who lives in New York. “He needs care. Mental care. Physical care. ” Mr. Sawah does not blame American soldiers for his treatment. “They were afraid of me, afraid for their life,” he said. “Guantánamo on both sides was just very scared people who want to live. ” In a courtroom at Guantánamo Bay in January 2009, five men sat accused of plotting the Sept. 11 attacks. They were avowed enemies of the United States, who had admitted to grievous bloodshed. They had also been subjected to the most horrific of the government’s interrogation tactics. During a courtroom break, one of the men, Ammar asked to speak with a doctor. Xavier Amador, a New York psychologist who was consulting for another defendant, met with him. As they talked, Mr. Baluchi’s eyes darted around the room, according to a summary of Dr. Amador’s notes obtained by The Times. Mr. Baluchi said he struggled to focus, described “terrifying anxiety” and reported difficulty sleeping. Dr. Amador noted that Mr. Baluchi seemed to meet the criteria for PTSD, anxiety disorder and major depression. “No one can live like this,” Mr. Baluchi told him. Mr. Baluchi, 39, was captured by Pakistani officers in April 2003. Though he was described as willing to talk, the C. I. A. moved him to a secret prison and immediately applied interrogation methods reserved for recalcitrant prisoners. In court documents and Mr. Baluchi’s handwritten letters, he described being naked and dehydrated, chained to the ceiling so only his toes touched the floor. He endured dousing and said he was beaten until he saw flashes of light and lost consciousness. He recalls punches from his guards whenever he drifted asleep. Today, his lawyer said, Mr. Baluchi associates sleep with imminent pain. “Not only did they not let me sleep,” Mr. Baluchi wrote in a letter provided by the lawyer, “they trained me to keep myself awake. ” Guantánamo physicians have prescribed Mr. Baluchi antidepressants, drugs and sleeping pills, according to his lawyer, James G. Connell III, who sends him deodorants and colognes to keep flashbacks at bay. “The whole time he was in C. I. A. custody, you’re sitting there, smelling your own stink,” Mr. Connell said. “Now, whenever he catches a whiff of his own body odor, it sets him off. ” General Xenakis, who is consulting on the case, found that Mr. Baluchi had PTSD and that he showed possible signs of a brain injury that may be linked to his beatings. He said Mr. Baluchi needed a brain scan, which the military opposes. The test would likely prompt more hearings, which could further complicate a trial. “Having caused these problems in the first place, now the United States has to deal with them at the military commissions,” Mr. Connell said. “And that takes time. ” The compromised mental status of several other prisoners, like Mr. Baluchi, has affected the military proceedings against them. Ramzi bin who admits helping plan the Sept. 11 attacks, has said he believes the military is tormenting him with vibrations, smells and sounds at Guantánamo. Military doctors there have found him to be delusional, and records indicate that his symptoms began in C. I. A. custody, after brutal tactics and years of solitary confinement. But Mr. bin refused to meet with doctors to assess his competency and insists he is sane, so the case continues. Lawyers have similarly raised questions about Abd ’s psychological state. Accused in the U. S. S. Cole bombing, he was subjected to waterboarding, mock execution, rectal feeding and other techniques — some approved, some not — at C. I. A. sites. Even after internal warnings that Mr. Nashiri was about to go “over the edge psychologically,” the C. I. A. pressed forward. Over the years, government doctors have diagnosed Mr. Nashiri with anxiety, major depression and PTSD. His lawyers do not dispute his competency to stand trial, though no such trial is imminent. His torture and mental decline, though, could make it harder for prosecutors to win a death sentence. When the Walter Reed doctors evaluated Mr. Nashiri, “they concluded that he suffers from chronic, complex, untreated PTSD,” his lawyer told a military judge in 2014. “And they attributed it to his time in C. I. A. custody. ” In Libya today, a former C. I. A. prisoner named Salih Hadeeyah struggles to focus, and his memory fails him. He finds himself confusing the names of his children. Sometimes, he withdraws from his family to be alone. A survivor of the C. I. A. interrogation in the Salt Pit, Mr. Daeiki says he was kept naked, humiliated and chained to the wall as loud music blared. Sleep is difficult now, but when it comes, his interrogators haunt him there. “Something is strangling me or I’m falling from high,” he said in an interview. “Or sometimes I see ghosts following me, chasing me. ” Last year, a video surfaced showing Colonel Qaddafi’s son, Saadi, being blindfolded and forced to listen to what sounded like the screams of other prisoners inside Al Hadba, a prison holding members of the former regime — Libya’s own detainees. Someone beat the soles of his feet with a stick. As the scene unfolded, Mr. Daeiki appeared on the screen. The beating was a mistake, he later acknowledged, but he did nothing to stop it. The goal was to collect intelligence to prevent bloodshed, he said. He was an interrogator now.

Here's the @NewYorker cartoonist's response to the #CharlieHebdo attack: https://t.co/feyRMwyCUi

@Diane_Tomlinson @AmyMek why not let the investigation take place instead of throwing false accusations?

After Tom Casperson, a Republican state senator from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, began running for Congress in 2016, he assumed the family of Betsy DeVos, Donald J. Trump’s nominee to be education secretary, would not oppose him. The DeVoses, a dominant force in Michigan politics for decades with a fortune in the billions, had contributed to one of Mr. Casperson’s earlier campaigns. But a week before his primary, family members sent $24, 000 to one of his opponents, then poured $125, 000 into a “super PAC,” Concerned Taxpayers of America, that ran ads attacking him. The reason, an intermediary told Mr. Casperson: his support from organized labor. “Deceitful, dishonest and cowardly,” was how Mr. Casperson’s campaign described the ads, complaining that the groups running them “won’t say who they are or where their money is coming from. ” On Primary Day, Mr. Casperson went down to defeat. In announcing his intention to nominate Ms. DeVos, Mr. Trump described her as “a brilliant and passionate education advocate. ” Even critics characterized her as a dedicated, if misguided, activist for school reform. But that description understates both the breadth of Ms. DeVos’s political interests and the influence she wields as part of her powerful family. More than anyone else who has joined the incoming Trump administration, she represents the combination of wealth, ideology and political hardball associated with a family of billionaires: Charles and David Koch. “They have this moralized sense of the free market that leads to this total program to turn back the ideas of the New Deal, the welfare state,” Kim a historian who has written extensively about the conservative movement, said, describing the DeVoses. Ms. DeVos declined to be interviewed for this article. Like the Kochs, the DeVoses are generous supporters of think tanks that evangelize for unrestrained capitalism, like Michigan’s Acton Institute, and that rail against unions and back privatizing public services, like the Mackinac Center. They have also funded national groups dedicated to cutting back the role of government, including the National Center for Policy Analysis (which has pushed for Social Security privatization and against environmental regulation) and the Institute for Justice (which challenges regulations in court and defends school vouchers). Both organizations have also received money from the Koch family. Indeed, the DeVoses’ education activism, which favors alternatives to traditional public schools, appears to derive from the same views that inform their suspicion of government. And perhaps more than other billionaires, the DeVoses couple their seeding of ideological causes with an aggressive brand of political spending. Half a dozen or more extended family members frequently coordinate contributions to maximize their impact. In the 2016 cycle alone, according to the Michigan Campaign Finance Network, the family spent roughly $14 million on political contributions to state and national candidates, parties, PACs and super PACs. All of this would make Ms. DeVos — whose confirmation hearing has been delayed until next week amid mounting pressure that her government ethics review be completed beforehand — very different from past education secretaries. “She is the most emblematic kind of oligarchic figure you can put in a cabinet position,” said Jeffrey Winters, a political scientist at Northwestern University who studies economic elites. “What she and the Kochs have in common is the unbridled use of wealth power to achieve whatever political goals they have. ” Ms. DeVos, 59, grew up in Holland, Mich. the daughter of a conservative auto parts magnate who was an early funder of the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian group. When she married Dick DeVos in 1979, it was akin to a merger between two royal houses of western Michigan. Her husband’s father, Richard Sr. of the multilevel marketing company Amway, was an active member of the Christian Reformed Church that preached a mix of social conservatism and . He once told the church’s official magazine that Chicago’s poor dwelled in slums because that was “the way they choose to live,” according to a Washington Post story from the 1980s. A fan of and pinkie rings, Richard Sr. wrote books with titles like “Ten Powerful Phrases for Positive People. ” A similar air hung over his business. Amway sales representatives, which the company calls “independent business owners,” make money both by selling the company’s products — everything from perfume to toilet bowl cleaner — and by recruiting other sales representatives. The Federal Trade Commission once investigated the company for running a pyramid scheme before concluding that it had misled potential recruits about how much they could expect to earn. The flip side of the family’s proselytizing for capitalism, according to Professor has been an effort to dismantle much “that would counterbalance the power of economic elites. ” Amway funded a nationwide ad campaign in the early 1980s, protesting high taxes and regulations. Not long after, the company pleaded guilty to cheating the Canadian government out of more than $20 million in revenue. The family had a more winning public face in Dick DeVos, who combined the practiced empathy of a pitchman with the entitlement of an heir, spending over $30 million on an unsuccessful run for governor of Michigan in 2006. The Detroit Free Press described him that year as the wealthiest man to seek office in the state’s modern history. Betsy DeVos, who served as chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party for most of the decade between 1996 and 2005, has often played the role of strategist in the relationship. She was a key adviser in her husband’s run for governor and publicly brooded that he had been too gentlemanly in his first debate against the incumbent. “He’s very good with people, a retail politician who looks you in the eye, shakes your hand, listens to what you say,” said Randy Richardville, a former Republican leader of the Michigan Senate, describing the couple’s strengths. “I would never underestimate Betsy DeVos in a knife fight. ” Ms. DeVos has sometimes lacked her husband’s finesse, once famously blaming many of the state’s economic woes on “high wages. ” She has won detractors, by their account, by browbeating legislators into voting her way. “Betsy DeVos was like my granddaughter at the time,” said Mike Pumford, a former Republican state representative who once clashed with her. “They were both sweet ladies as long as they kept hearing the word ‘yes.’ They turned into spoiled little brats when they were told ‘no. ’” But Ms. DeVos has often made up for what she lacks in tact through sheer force of will. Mr. Richardville said he and Ms. DeVos disagreed over term limits, which she supported as party chairwoman and he opposed: “I said, ‘I don’t think you should be setting policy. You should be supporting those of us who do make policy.’ But she never backed down. ” While Dick and Betsy DeVos appear to practice a more tolerant form of Christianity than their parents — Ms. DeVos has spoken out against bigotry — as recently as the early 2000s they funded some groups like Focus on the Family, a large ministry that helps set the political agenda for conservative evangelicals. They have also backed groups that promote conservative values to students and Christian education, including one with ties to the Christian Reformed Church. Their economic views are strikingly similar to the elder Mr. DeVos’s. According to federal disclosures, Amway, which Dick DeVos ran between 1993 and 2002, has lobbied frequently over the last 20 years to reduce or repeal the estate tax. Only the top 0. 2 percent wealthiest estates paid the tax in 2015. The company has also opposed crackdowns on tax shelters. Ms. DeVos has been an outspoken defender of unlimited contributions known as soft money, which she described in a 1997 editorial as “ American dollars that Big Brother has yet to find a way to control. ” After Congress later passed a major campaign finance reform bill, a nonprofit that Ms. DeVos helped to create and fund masterminded the strategy that produced Citizens United, the 2010 Supreme Court decision laying the groundwork for super PACs funded by corporations, unions and individuals to raise and spend unlimited amounts in elections. And then there are the family’s efforts to rein in the labor movement. Through their contributions to think tanks like the Mackinac Center, as well as Mr. DeVos’s direct prodding of Republican legislators, the family played a key role in helping pass Michigan’s legislation in 2012. The legislation largely ended the requirement that workers pay fees to unions as a condition of employment. Unions in the state bled members in 2014, the first full year the measure was in effect. Allies say the DeVoses fight for their beliefs. “Betsy and Dick see themselves as principled conservatives,” said Frederick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute. “It kind of seems healthy and admirable to give resources to folks who are going to fight for causes you believe in. ” But the fights can appear to be as much about consolidating power as ideology. Unions were arguably the family’s most formidable political opponent in Michigan, one of labor’s traditional strongholds. The DeVos family’s roots as education activists date back at least to when Richard DeVos Sr. was running Amway and an institute based at the company’s headquarters trained teachers to inject principles into their curriculum. According to an interview Ms. DeVos gave to Philanthropy magazine, she and her husband became interested in education causes when they began visiting a Christian school that served children in Grand Rapids in the 1980s. “If we could choose the right school for our kids” — by which she appeared to mean primarily private schools — “it only seemed fair that they could do the same for theirs,” she told the magazine. The family spent millions of dollars on a ballot proposal in 2000 asking if Michigan should legalize vouchers, in which students can use taxpayer money to attend private schools. Many critics, like the education historian Diane Ravitch, argue that the point of vouchers is to destroy public education and teachers’ unions. The group Americans United for Separation of Church and State has documented how conservative Christians have long supported vouchers, which could fund religious schools. After voters objected by more than a ratio, Dick DeVos gave a speech at the Heritage Foundation saying such efforts would have to shift to state legislatures, where groups backed by donors could offer “a political consequence for opposition, and political reward for support of education reform issues. ” It is not unusual for the wealthy — who devote nearly 50 percent of their philanthropic dollars to education, according to the group — to spend aggressively in the political realm to impose their preferred reforms. Even by these standards, however, the DeVoses stand out for the amount of money they spend trying to advance their goals through politics rather than philanthropy, such as research into reforms or subsidizing schools. As Sarah Reckhow, an expert on education philanthropy at Michigan State University, put it: “The DeVoses are like: ‘No, we know what we want. We don’t need to have all this window dressing. ’” Ms. DeVos has led two nonprofits that have spent millions of dollars electing governors and legislators sympathetic to school vouchers around the country. Matt Frendewey, a spokesman for one of the groups, said the efforts had frequently been bipartisan, and that the amount of money they had spent has been dwarfed by contributions from teachers’ unions opposed to reform. Yet in Michigan, at least, the family’s political strategy has not been subtle. After he defied Ms. DeVos on a key charter school vote, Mr. Pumford, the former Republican legislator, survived an effort by the Great Lakes Education Project, a nonprofit the DeVoses bankrolled, to defeat him in his 2002 primary. But shortly after, the House speaker told him the Education Committee chairmanship he coveted would not be forthcoming. “I said, ‘Why? ’” Mr. Pumford recalled. “He said: ‘You know why. The DeVoses will walk away from us. ’” Mr. Pumford added: “She told me that was going to happen. ” (Rick Johnson, the House speaker, said he did not recall the conversation but also that he had not promised Mr. Pumford the chairmanship and would not have explained his reasons for withholding it.) Over time, the Great Lakes Education Project helped elect Republican majorities sympathetic to the DeVoses’ agenda. But the DeVoses’ lobbyists and operatives also discovered less messy ways to advance legislation. Late one night of their last workweek in 2015, the Michigan House and Senate were about to approve some uncontroversial changes to campaign finance law, when the bill abruptly grew by more than 40 pages. After the legislators discovered what they had voted for, many said they were horrified. Tucked away in the new pages was a provision that would have made it much harder for local bodies like school boards to raise money through property tax increases. “Michigan schools will likely suffer the brunt of the impact because the vast majority rely on periodic voter approval of local operating levy renewals for property taxes,” the ratings agency Moody’s wrote of the measure the following month. “I was fooled into voting for something I opposed,” said Dave Pagel, a Republican representative. “I consider it the worst vote I’ve made. ” The chief culprits, according to Mr. Pagel and others at the state Capitol when the bill passed, were lobbyists closely tied to the DeVoses. Tony Daunt, a spokesman for the Michigan Freedom Fund, a nonprofit headed by the DeVoses’ longtime political aide, and whose political spending arm they have funded generously, said the group was “part of the discussion process with people in the legislature” about the proposal and “had consistently expressed support for the policy. ” The law was later blocked by a federal judge, but the group has vowed to try again. Ms. DeVos’s advocates see in these fights the toughness to take on entrenched opponents of expanding reforms like charter schools and vouchers. In promoting Ms. DeVos in The Washington Post, Mitt Romney, the Republican Party’s 2012 presidential nominee, emphasized that her wealth gave her the independence to be “someone who isn’t financially biased shaping education. ” He added, “DeVos doesn’t need the job now, nor will she be looking for an education job later. ” But critics see someone with an unmistakable agenda. “The signs are there that she will do something radical,” said Jack Jennings, a former general counsel for the House education committee. “Trump wouldn’t have appointed this woman for this position if he didn’t intend something radical. ”

The U.N. Security Council unanimously imposed new sanctions on North Korea on Friday for its recent intercontinental ballistic missile test, seeking to limit its access to refined petroleum products and crude oil and its earnings from workers abroad. The U.N. resolution seeks to ban nearly 90 percent of refined petroleum exports to North Korea by capping them at 500,000 barrels a year and, in a last-minute change, demands the repatriation of North Koreans working abroad within 24 months, instead of 12 months as first proposed. The U.S.-drafted resolution also caps crude oil supplies to North Korea at 4 million barrels a year and commits the Council to further reductions if it were to conduct another nuclear test or launch another ICBM. North Korea on Nov. 29 said it successfully tested a new ICBM that put the U.S. mainland within range of its nuclear weapons. Tension has been rising over North Korea s nuclear and missile programs, which it pursues in defiance of years of U.N. Security Council resolutions, with bellicose rhetoric coming from both Pyongyang and the White House. In November, North Korea demanded a halt to what it called brutal sanctions , saying a round imposed after its sixth and most powerful nuclear test on Sept. 3 constituted genocide. U.S. diplomats have made clear they are seeking a diplomatic solution but proposed the new, tougher sanctions resolution to ratchet up pressure on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. It sends the unambiguous message to Pyongyang that further defiance will invite further punishments and isolation, Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said after the 15-0 vote. The North Korean mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Wu Haitao, China s deputy U.N. ambassador, said tensions on the Korean peninsula risk spiraling out of control and he repeated Beijing s call for talks. China s foreign ministry said it hoped all parties would implement the resolution and urged all sides to exercise restraint. It also reiterated a call for what it calls a dual suspension proposal for the United States and South Korea to stop major military exercises in exchange for North Korea halting its weapons programs. South Korea welcomed the sanctions and called on the North to immediately cease reckless provocations, and take the path of dialogue for denuclearization . North Korea regularly threatens to destroy South Korea, the United States and Japan, and says its weapons are necessary to counter U.S. aggression. The United States stations 28,500 troops in the South, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War. On Friday, North Korea called U.S. President Donald Trump s recently released national security strategy the latest attempt to stifle our country and turn the entire Korean peninsula into an outpost of American hegemony. Speaking before the Security Council vote, analysts said the new sanctions could have a major effect on the North s economy. The cap on oil would be devastating for North Korea s haulage industry, for North Koreans who use generators at home or for productive activities, and for (state-owned enterprises) that do the same, said Peter Ward, a columnist for NK News, a website that tracks North Korea. The forced repatriation of its overseas workers would also cut off vital sources of foreign currency, he said. China, which supplies most of North Korea s oil, has backed successive rounds of U.N. sanctions but had resisted past U.S. calls to cut off fuel supplies to its neighbor. John Park, director of the Korea Working Group at the Harvard Kennedy School, said it was important to manage expectations about sanctions, which could take years to have a full impact while the North was making progress in its weapons programs at a pace measured in weeks and months. If the game plan is to use sanctions as the last non-military policy tool to induce North Korea s return to the denuclearization table, we may quickly find Washington prioritizing military options, Park said. The move to curb Chinese fuel exports to North Korea may have limited impact after China National Petroleum Corp CNPET.UL suspended diesel and gasoline sales to its northern neighbor in June over concerns it would not get paid. Business has slowed since then, with zero shipments of diesel, gasoline and other fuel from China in October. Russia quietly boosted economic support for North Korea this year, and last week Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov said Moscow was not ready to sign up to sanctions that would strangle the country economically. In a bid to further choke North Korea s external sources of funding, the resolution also seeks to ban North Korean exports of food products, machinery, electrical equipment, earth and stone, wood and vessels. It also bans exports to North Korea of industrial equipment, machinery, transport vehicles, and industrial metals as well as subjecting 15 North Koreans and the Ministry of the People s Armed Forces to a global asset freeze and travel ban. The resolution seeks to allow countries to seize, inspect and freeze any vessel they believe was carrying banned cargo or involved in prohibited activities. Even if the sanctions have an economic effect, it is not clear whether that would push Pyongyang to negotiate or stop its weapons development, said Kim Sung-han, a former South Korean vice foreign minister. We have had numerous ... sanctions against North Korea over the past 25 years, he said. Almost none have worked effectively to halt the regime s military and nuclear ambitions.

Farrah Abraham Sparks Controversy With Bollywood Outfit At MTV Movie & TV Awards

BEIRUT (Reuters) - The death toll from air strikes on a Syrian town in a de-escalation zone has risen to 61, a war monitor said on Tuesday, a demonstration of the fragile state of areas set up in attempt to ease the violence. Jihadist rebels blamed Russian warplanes of carrying out Monday s attack and said they would fight back against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad s forces and his Russian and Iranian backers in the six-year-old conflict. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said three air strikes hit the market in Atareb, west of Aleppo, and killed at least 61 people. Atareb is inside what is known as a de-escalation zone under an agreement between Turkey, Russia and Iran to reduce the bloodshed. But despite the diplomatic efforts, fighting continues in many areas, including Aleppo, Idlib, Raqqa, Deir al-Zor and Hama. (The zones) did de-escalate fighting, U.N. humanitarian adviser Jan Egeland told Reuters. But lately, there has been increased fighting also. The zones were set up under the Astana process, a series of talks in the capital of Kazakhstan between Russia and Iran, and the rebels supporter Turkey. They agreed in September to deploy observers on the edge of a de-escalation zone in Syria s Idlib province, which is largely under the control of Islamist insurgents. Following the air strikes, the Tahrir al-Sham jihadist alliance denounced the ceasefire talks and pledged to keep fighting government forces and their Russian and Iranian allies. This aggression and crimes confirms for us that there is no solution with the colonizers without fighting and struggling, it said. Tahrir al-Sham includes the group formerly known as the Nusra Front, which changed its name last year when it broke formal ties to al Qaeda.

A first glance, this doesn t seem like a big deal:Federal employee health-care plans will have to cover applied behavior analysis for children on the autism spectrum starting next year, and they are being encouraged to step up the incentives for enrollees to participate in wellness programs.But that s only until you understand what applied behavior analysis actually is and why it s one of the single most vital steps in helping children cope with autism. ABA is a form on one-on-one tutoring that can start with children under two years of age (my own son, Jordan, started at about 19 months).This tutoring varies from child to child. In Jordan s case, he learned how to focus on the task in front of him and how to behave in a teacher/student setting. He did this for 2 hours a day, 5 days a week for a little over a year. By the time he went to Early Intervention schooling (another critical component), Jordan was capable of being a student and has been steadily progressing from there.It s hard to overstate how important ABA is for children with autism. It s an incredibly time intensive program taught by highly trained professionals, which means it s very expensive. A full week program is certainly out of the reach of anyone not in the upper middle class and beyond. Making it a mandatory part of federal health care is literally a life-saving and life-changing event for countless parents and their children. I can say with absolute certainty that Jordan s ABA teacher helped him reach out of himself at a time where he couldn t even point to something he wanted because the very idea of directly expressing a need was completely foreign to him.The best part of this is that it s a bi-partisan effort, meaning the usual gridlock will not impact the families that need help the most:Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), co-chair of the Congressional Autism Caucus, called the requirement a milestone that will help ensure families across the country using ABA therapy will no longer have to pay the full out-of-pocket costs, and that public servants in every state will have access to an insurance plan that meets the needs of individuals on the spectrum. We know that early diagnosis and intervention services are critical to the long term development of a child with autism, he said. In addition to universal and early detection screening, interventions such as ABA therapy are important tools that helps provide children with ASD an opportunity to live to their full potential. This is a godsend and I can only hope that it becomes mandatory for EVERY insurance plan. The epidemic of autism is not going away and the longer we wait to help these children, the harder it becomes to help them effectively.Featured image via Getty

Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Pippa’s bridal party of bridesmaids and pageboys

Many Americans view Islam unfavorably, and supporters of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump are more than twice as likely to view the religion negatively as those backing Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, according to a Reuters/Ipsos online poll of more than 7,000 Americans. It shows that 37 percent of American adults have a “somewhat unfavorable” or “very unfavorable” view of Islam. This includes 58 percent of Trump supporters and 24 percent of Clinton supporters, a contrast largely mirrored by the breakdown between Republicans and Democrats. By comparison, respondents overall had an equally unfavorable view of atheism at 38 percent, compared with 21 percent for Hinduism, 16 percent for Judaism and 8 percent for Christianity. Spokespeople for Trump and Clinton declined to comment. The poll took place before an attacker on Thursday drove his truck into a holiday crowd in Nice, France, killing more than 80 people in what President Francois Hollande called a terrorist act. Police sources said the driver, while linked to common crimes, was not on a watch list of intelligence services and no Islamist militant group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. The race for the Nov. 8 U.S. presidential election has put a spotlight on Americans’ views of Muslims with Trump proposing a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States. He repeated the proposal after Omar Mateen, a New York-born Muslim armed with an assault rifle, killed 49 people in an attack on a Florida gay nightclub last month. The ideological divide between Trump and Clinton supporters is set against a backdrop of increasing violence and discrimination against Muslims in the United States. The poll shows 78 percent of Trump supporters and 36 percent of Clinton supporters said that when compared to other religions, Islam was more likely to encourage acts of terrorism. Trump supporters were also about twice as likely as Clinton supporters to say that Islam was more encouraging of violence toward Americans, women and gay people. Polling on none of the other belief systems and their perceived connection to terrorism or violence came close to matching those numbers. Clinton has called for a more inclusive environment within American society and for a joint effort between the U.S. government and Muslim countries to battle the spread of Islamist militancy. She has criticized Trump’s harsh statements about Muslims and Mexicans while Trump has bemoaned what he calls American society’s devotion to political correctness. Graphic: tmsnrt.rs/29IPJ6l Party affiliation accounted for the deepest division among Americans where their views on Muslims were concerned. Respondents’ status as rich or poor, young or old, or male or female did not offer as pronounced an overall view as did their identification as Democrats or Republicans. “If it was true that Trump did not represent Republicans broadly defined, you would think Republicans would look different; they don’t,” said Douglas McAdam, a sociology professor at Stanford University who studies American politics. “It goes against the claims of the (former presidential candidate) Mitt Romneys of the world, that Trump is not really a Republican, that he doesn’t represent the Republican party. He seems to be resonating with Republicans generally.” According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights group, attacks on American Muslims and on mosques in the United States rose in 2015 to their highest level ever recorded. The group said 31 incidents of damage or destruction of mosques were reported; there were 11 incidents in which a Muslim person was the target of a slur or another kind of harassment. The Reuters/Ipsos poll ran in all 50 states from June 14 to July 6. It included 7,473 American adults and has a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of 1 percentage point.

@RuwaydaMustafah IF the shooting linked to Muslims, it wont be due to this image but earlier ones insulting the Prophet (saw). (IF)

Home / News / Yikes! Catholic Church announces a major warning against Hillary Yikes! Catholic Church announces a major warning against Hillary Heisenberg 5 mins ago News Comments Off on Yikes! Catholic Church announces a major warning against Hillary A San Diego Catholic Church claims Hillary is doing the devils work. Reuters reported: A Roman Catholic church in San Diego told its parishioners the devil works through politicians like Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and warned that voting for Democrats is a “mortal sin,” according to local media and the church’s website. The Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Old Town made the statements in its weekly leaflet to churchgoers, a copy of which remains on the church’s website. The letter railed against issues like abortion and constraints on tax-exempt organizations from certain political activity, likening them to slavery. “Satan has deceived many Christians to convert to worldly values from Christian ones,” the Oct. 30 bulletin reads. “The devil does this through the tactics outlined by Saul Alinsky with the outcome as Hillary Clinton has stated, ‘And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed,’ to draw us away from God’s teachings.”

Says in U.S. Congress, members dont even have to be on the floor for debates or votes.

U.S. President Donald Trump declared on Saturday that he has “complete power to pardon,” as his administration confronts ongoing investigations of possible ties between his 2016 campaign and Russia. In a series of early morning Twitter messages, Trump aired renewed frustration with his attorney general, the special counsel leading the Russia probe, and Republicans in Congress who are struggling to advance his legislative agenda. But Trump’s comment about pardons, tucked into an attack on the media, raised the possibility that he was considering his options if the investigations do not turn out the way he hopes. Trump did not specify who, if anyone, he might consider pardoning. His tweets appeared to be written in response to a report by The Washington Post this week that Trump and his legal team have examined presidential powers to pardon Trump aides, family members and possibly even himself. Reuters has not confirmed the newspaper accounts. “While all agree the U.S. President has the complete power to pardon, why think of that when only crime so far is LEAKS against us. FAKE NEWS,” Trump wrote. The Washington Post, citing current and former U.S. officials, reported on Friday that Russia’s ambassador to the United States was overheard by U.S. spy agencies telling his bosses that he had discussed campaign-related matters with Trump adviser Jeff Sessions last year, when Sessions was a U.S. senator. Sessions now leads the Justice Department as Trump’s attorney general. “These illegal leaks...must stop,” Trump tweeted. At the Senate confirmation hearings for his Cabinet position, Sessions initially failed to disclose his 2016 contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak and later said they were not about the campaign. In March, Sessions recused himself from the Russia probe. During an interview with The New York Times this week, Trump lashed out at Sessions, saying he would not have chosen him for attorney general had he known Sessions would recuse himself. Trump, who defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton in last year’s presidential election but continues to use her as a foil, questioned why Sessions and special counsel Robert Mueller were not investigating former FBI Director James Comey or Clinton, for her email practices as secretary of state. “So many people are asking why isn’t the A.G. or Special Counsel looking at the many Hillary Clinton or Comey crimes. 33,000 emails deleted...,” he tweeted. Scholars have raised questions about the scope of the president’s legal authority in issuing pardons. If Trump moved to pardon himself sometime in the future, the U.S. Supreme Court might have to decide on the constitutionality, some have speculated. Trump has not been accused of any wrongdoing by federal investigators who are probing alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Mueller is looking into any relationships or contacts between Trump campaign officials and Russians during the election. Congressional committees also are exploring Russia’s influence on the U.S. election. Trump traveled on Saturday to Norfolk, Virginia, where he spoke at a commissioning ceremony for the aircraft carrier the USS Gerald R. Ford, named for the Republican president who held the White House from 1974-1977. In his remarks, Trump made no mention of the Russia controversy, focusing his speech on the need for more robust U.S. military spending. After the trip, Trump retreated to his golf course near Washington and had lunch with his chief of staff, Reince Priebus, policy adviser Stephen Miller and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and his wife, a White House official said. Priebus’s presence in the entourage came a day after Trump named a new communications director, Anthony Scaramucci, reportedly over Priebus’s objections. The weekend trip comes ahead of a busy week of Russia-related activity. The Senate Judiciary Committee said on Friday that Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., and Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort had agreed to negotiate whether to be interviewed by the panel in its Russia investigation. Trump Jr., Manafort and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and now one of his senior advisers, all met with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya in June 2016. That meeting was held in Trump Tower in New York after the lawyer offered damaging information about Clinton. The White House is also working on Trump’s campaign promise to U.S. healthcare system. In his Saturday tweets, Trump had words for Republican senators who have not been able to agree on a way forward to repeal and replace former President Barack Obama’s healthcare law, the Affordable Care Act, which has become known as Obamacare and which Trump promised to do away with as president. “The Republican Senators must step up to the plate and, after 7 years, vote to Repeal and Replace. Next, Tax Reform and Infrastructure. WIN!” he tweeted.

The short answer? I don t think so, but it s possible.The other day on Morning Joe, the Democratic presidential frontrunner said the following during a phone-in interview with the MSNBC morning show hosts: I guess at the end of the day, for me you know, people talk about their extraordinary grandchildren, but I actually have one and we re going to do everything we can to give her opportunities. And we re going to do everything we can to give her opportunities. But it s not enough.And I think too many people are forgetting what are some of the biggest determinants as to what happens to your children and grandchildren. The first being what kind of country we are and whether we re still providing the opportunities to realize your promise and potential and what kind of world s going to be out there waiting.And I feel passionately that just because we had it in the past, doesn t mean we re going to keep it in the future. You shouldn t have to be the granddaughter of a former president to have your American Dream realized. I think every kid should have a chance to live up to her god-given potential. A debate has erupted online in which Bernie Sanders supporters are suggesting that Clinton s remarks about how she actually has a grandchild is a not-so-subtle jab at the fact that Sanders has seven grandchildren through his current wife of 27 years, Jane O Meara Sanders, whose three children were from her previous marriage.To be clear, Clinton launched into a long answer to a question from Mika Brzezinski that began with something about the contrast between her and the other Democratic candidates plural. But there was a long section preceding her grandchildren remarks about what she intends to do and what her qualifications are. Then the thing about the grandkids. So, there wasn t an explicitly Sanders-oriented context for her remarks.But if this was, in fact, a cut at Sanders, it s confounding as to why she would make such an esoteric remark. What does she gain with Democratic voters by implying that her grandchild is legitimate, while Sanders grandchildren somehow aren t? I mean, how many primary voters know that much about Sanders family? I ve been following Sanders career for ten years now, and I had no idea he was even married until recently much less that he had three step-kids and seven step-grandchildren. I also didn t know until today that three of his grandkids were adopted from China.One blogger, Shane Ryan, observed that Sanders, during his stump speeches, often refers to his grandkids as extraordinary. I tried to confirm this, but didn t turn up any transcripts or pullquotes to verify it. So, chances are if true very, very, very few people know that Sanders uses the word extraordinary to describe his grandkids, making Clinton s jab if intentional even more obscure.Is Clinton capable of lashing out when backed into a corner? Sure. Is it possible she intended to randomly criticize Sanders grandkids via some sort of twisted political calculation? Absolutely. But it d be terrible politics. You don t mention families much less criticize the origins of an opponent s children. The topic is off limits. By doing so, she d only make herself look like terrible human being.One thing enemies and fans alike can agree upon: she s smart enough and experienced enough to understand blowback. Seriously, what kind of Democratic primary voter would get her attack and then vote against Sanders because his seven grandkids aren t biological, while Clinton s grandchild is blood-related? It seems like there s more risk than reward in such a gambit.So what do you think?[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0iaI3YRCiw] Featured image via video screen grab.

This @NewYorker cartoon from 2006 seems to be the perfect response to the #CharlieHebdo attack: https://t.co/gsU1uHSng4 via @ninalakhani

@royaltyrell516 @Alyssa_Milano So true. It is the media who is portraying this as the citizens being thugs, etc. 1/2

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO allies on Tuesday welcomed President Donald Trump’s decision to commit more forces to Afghanistan, as part of a new U.S. strategy he said would require more troops and funding from America’s partners. Having run for the White House last year on a pledge to withdraw swiftly from Afghanistan, Trump reversed course on Monday and promised a stepped-up military campaign against Taliban insurgents, saying: “Our troops will fight to win”. U.S. officials said he had signed off on plans to send about 4,000 more U.S. troops to add to the roughly 8,400 now deployed in Afghanistan. But his speech did not define benchmarks for successfully ending the war that began with the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, and which he acknowledged had required an “extraordinary sacrifice of blood and treasure”. “We will ask our NATO allies and global partners to support our new strategy, with additional troops and funding increases in line with our own. We are confident they will,” Trump said. That comment signaled he would further increase pressure on U.S. partners who have already been jolted by his repeated demands to step up their contributions to NATO and his description of the alliance as “obsolete” - even though, since taking office, he has said this is no longer the case. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement: “NATO remains fully committed to Afghanistan and I am looking forward to discussing the way ahead with (Defense) Secretary (James) Mattis and our Allies and international partners.” NATO has 12,000 troops in Afghanistan, and 15 countries have pledged more, Stoltenberg said. Britain, a leading NATO member, called the U.S. commitment “very welcome”. “In my call with Secretary Mattis yesterday we agreed that despite the challenges, we have to stay the course in Afghanistan to help build up its fragile democracy and reduce the terrorist threat to the West,” Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said. Germany, which has borne the brunt of Trump’s criticism over the scale of its defense spending, also welcomed the new U.S. plan. “Our continued commitment is necessary on the path to stabilizing the country,” a government spokeswoman said. In June, European allies had already pledged more troops but had not given details on numbers, waiting for the Trump administration to outline its strategy for the region.Nearly 16 years after the U.S.-led invasion - a response to the Sept. 11 attacks which were planned by al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden from Afghanistan - the country is still struggling with weak central government and a Taliban insurgency. Trump said he shared the frustration of the American people who were “weary of war without victory”, but a hasty withdrawal would create a vacuum for groups like Islamic State and al Qaeda to fill.

Comments In this hilarious clip, late night talk-show host Seth Meyers discusses the difficulty that many Americans seem to be feeling about choosing between the two candidates on election night 2016 – Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, or Republican nominee Donald Trump. Meyers does a detailed breakdown that presents the pros and cons of each candidate and details exactly what they have to offer the American people – and it’s spot on. I think we can all agree there’s only one choice this Tuesday. Watch it here:

The assistant to a billionaire real estate developer from Macau accused of engaging in a scheme to pay bribes to a former United Nations General Assembly president is in plea talks, his lawyer said on Tuesday. The negotiations involving Jeff Yin, who was arrested along with billionaire Ng Lap Seng in 2015, were disclosed in a letter filed in Manhattan federal court by his attorney, who said prosecutors had extended him a plea offer. The lawyer, Sabrina Shroff, sought to extend court deadlines so that Yin, 31, could consider the plea offer, which “is complex and involves civil tax assessments and liabilities,” according to her letter. The plea talks come ahead of a jury trial scheduled for May 15, in which Yin and his boss could face substantial prison time if convicted. It was unclear what charges Yin would have to plead guilty to if he accepted the offer. He had faced bribery, money laundering and tax-related charges, and was also accused of violating the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Shroff declined comment. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan, which is pursuing the case, also declined comment. Ng, who was once linked to a campaign fundraising investigation during former U.S. President Bill Clinton’s administration, is one of seven individuals charged since October 2015 in the U.N.-related probe. Prosecutors accuse Ng and Yin of paying more than $500,000 in bribes to John Ashe, a former U.N. ambassador from Antigua and Barbuda who served as General Assembly president from 2013 to 2014. Ashe died in June awaiting trial. The indictment said Ng and Yin also paid bribes to Francis Lorenzo, a then-deputy U.N. ambassador from the Dominican Republic who pleaded guilty in March 2016 to bribery and money laundering charges as part of a deal to cooperate in the probe. The main goal of the bribes, according to the indictment, was to have both ambassadors take steps to help obtain United Nations’ support for a multibillion-dollar U.N.-backed conference center in Macau that Sun Kian Ip Group would develop. Yin, a U.S. citizen who currently lives in California, also faces charges for taking steps to evade paying income taxes and helping Lorenzo conceal portions of his income from U.S. tax authorities. Ng, the founder of Macau-based real estate developer Sun Kian Ip Group, has denied wrongdoing. A lawyer for Ng declined to comment.

Google is one of the most valuable companies in the world, but its future, like that of all tech giants, is clouded by a looming threat. The search company makes virtually all of its money from ads placed on the World Wide Web. But what happens to the cash machine if web search eventually becomes outmoded? That worry isn’t . More of the world’s computing time keeps shifting to smartphones, where apps have supplanted the web. And devices that may dominate the next era in tech — smartwatches, devices like Amazon’s Echo, or virtual reality machines like Oculus Rift — are likely to be free of the web, and may even lack screens. But if Google is worried, it isn’t showing it. The company has long been working on a weapon to avert its potential irrelevance. Google has shoveled vast financial and engineering resources into a collection of data mining and artificial intelligence systems, from speech recognition to machine translation to computer vision. Now Google is melding these advances into a new product, a technology whose ultimate aim is something like the talking computer on “Star Trek. ” It is a bet: If this new tech fails, it could signal the beginning of the end of Google’s reign over our lives. But if it succeeds, Google could achieve a centrality in human experience unrivaled by any tech product so far. The company calls its version of this machine the Google Assistant. Today, it resembles other digital helpers you’ve likely used — things like Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa and Microsoft’s Cortana. It currently lives in Google’s new messaging app, Allo, and will also be featured in a few new gadgets the company plans to unveil next week, including a new smartphone and an Amazon talking computer called Google Home. But Google has much grander aims for the Assistant. People at the company say that Sundar Pichai, who took over as Google’s chief executive last year after Google was split into a conglomerate called Alphabet, has bet the company on the new tech. Mr. Pichai declined an interview request for this column, but at Google’s developer conference in May, he called the development of the Assistant “a seminal moment” for the company. If the Assistant or something like it does not take off, Google’s status as the chief navigator of our digital lives could be superseded by a other assistants. You might interact with Alexa in your house, with Siri on your phone, and with Facebook Messenger’s chatbot when you’re out and about. Google’s search engine (not to mention its Android operating system, Chrome, Gmail, Maps and other properties) would remain popular and lucrative, but possibly far less so than they are today. That’s the threat. But the Assistant also presents Google with a delicious opportunity. The “Star Trek” computer is no metaphor. The company believes that machine learning has advanced to the point that it is now possible to build a predictive, superhelpful and conversational assistant of the sort that Captain Kirk relied on to navigate the stars. The Assistant, in Google’s most vision, would always be around, wherever you are, on whatever device you use, to handle just about any informational task. Consider this common situation: Today, to book a trip, you usually have to load up several travel sites, consult your calendar and coordinate with your family and your colleagues. If the Assistant works as well as Google hopes, all you might have to do is say, “O. K. Google, I need to go to Hong Kong next week. Take care of it. ” Based on your interactions with it over the years, Google would know your habits, your preferences and your budget. It would know your friends, family and your colleagues. With access to so much data, and with the computational power to interpret all of it, the Assistant most likely could handle the entire task if it couldn’t, it would simply ask you to fill in the gaps, the way a human assistant might. Computers have made a lot of everyday tasks far easier to accomplish, yet they still require a sometimes annoying level of human involvement to get the most out of them. The Assistant’s aim is to eliminate all this busywork. If it succeeds, it would be the ultimate expression of what Larry Page, Google’s once described as the perfect search engine: a machine that “understands exactly what you mean and gives you back exactly what you want. ” At this point, a few readers may be recoiling at the potential invasion of autonomy and privacy that such a machine would necessitate. The Assistant would involve giving ourselves over to machines more fully. We would trust them not just with our information but increasingly with our decisions. Many people are already freaked out by what Google, Facebook and other tech companies know about us. Would we be willing to hand over even more power to computers? Those are important questions, but they are also well down the road. For now, the more pressing question for the Assistant is: Will it even work? Google has technological advantages that suggest it could build a more capable digital assistant than others have accomplished. Many of the innovations that it has built into its search engine — including its knowledge graph database of more than a billion people, places and things, and the 17 years it has spent trying to understand the meaning of web queries — will form the Assistant’s brain. Google has also been one of the leaders in machine learning, the process that allows computers to discover facts about the world without being explicitly programmed. Machine learning is at the heart of a number of recent advances, including Google Photos’ uncanny capacity to search through your images for arbitrary terms (photos of people hugging, for instance). “We are in the process of transforming into a company,” Jeff Dean, who is in charge of Google Brain, the company’s artificial intelligence project, told me this year. For each problem Google solves this way, it gets better at solving other problems. “It’s a boulder going downhill gathering more momentum as it goes,” Mr. Dean said. If you use the Assistant today, you’ll see some of these advances. As my colleague Brian X. Chen explained last week, if your friend sends you a picture of his dog on Allo, Google Assistant will not only recognize that it’s a dog, but it will also tell you the breed. That’s an amazing technological feat. But as Brian pointed out, it’s also pretty useless. Why does your friend care if you know his dog’s a Shih Tzu? This gets to a deeper difficulty. The search company might have the technical capacity to create the smartest assistant around, but it’s not at all clear that it has the prowess to create the friendliest, most charming or most useful assistant. Google needs to nail not just Assistant’s smarts, but also its personality — a new skill for Google, and one that its past forays into social software (Google Plus, anyone?) don’t speak highly of. Then there is the mismatch between Google’s ambitions and Assistant’s current reality. Danny Sullivan, the founding editor of Search Engine Land, told me that so far, he hadn’t noticed the Assistant helping him in any major way. “When I was trying to book a movie, it didn’t really narrow things down for me,” he said. “And there were some times it was wrong. I asked it to show me my upcoming trip, and it didn’t get that. ” Of course, it’s still early. Mr. Sullivan has high hopes for the Assistant. It would be premature to look at the technology today and get discouraged about its future, especially since Google sees this as a multiyear, perhaps even project. And especially if Google’s future depends on getting this right.

Go to Article President Barack Obama has been campaigning hard for the woman who is supposedly going to extend his legacy four more years. The only problem with stumping for Hillary Clinton, however, is she’s not exactly a candidate easy to get too enthused about.

Fighting in Yemen s capital has intensified, with the known toll from three hospitals reaching at least 125 killed and 238 wounded in the past six days, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Monday. Saudi-led coalition warplanes struck at Houthi militia positions in Yemen s capital Sanaa for a second day on Monday in support of ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh, a former Houthi ally who has now renounced his alliance with the Iranian-backed group. Residents are trapped in their homes, many lacking provisions, with the sick, wounded and pregnant women often unable to reach hospitals, ICRC spokeswoman Iolanda Jaquemet said. The ICRC supplies three large hospitals in the Yemeni capital

How many deaths? MT @nytimesworld A crowd gathered in Toulouse for the national moment of silence for the #CharlieHebdo victims

Scott Disick shares picture of Sofia Richie massaging his feet as loved-up pair relax on the beach for his 35th birthday

@TheRoot There had to have been a reason. People just don't out right kill someone, unless there mentally unhinged.

Talks among ministers from Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) countries on reviving their trade deal on Thursday were very productive but more discussion is needed, Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said. Ministers from the 11 countries are meeting in the resort of Danang in Vietnam on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit to discuss how to proceed with the deal after the United States withdrew. It was a very productive meeting, but we are still discussing. We will comment later on today, the minister told reporters. Everybody wants to have a result. Ministers did not say when further discussions would be held, but an official said they were likely to continue on Thursday evening.

Looking back on the 2016 Presidential election, there was a non-stop chorus on denials by Hillary Clinton, her campaign surrogates, and the mainstream media that had not allowed any classified emails to float around her home-brew server, or onto the family of her close aids.As it turns out, Hillary Clinton was lying. A new batch of emails released by the US State Department clearly show that Anthony Weiner, convicted sex criminal and husband of Clinton s chief aid Huma Abedin, had kept classified emails pertaining to official US State Department business during Hillary Clinton s tenure as Secretary of State kept on the same laptop which Weiner used to target an underage girl and where he also kept child pornography.Among the released emails were exchanges which clearly show Hillary Clinton conspiracy with authoritarian Saudi Arabia to stop Wikileaks. The reopening of this old Clinton gaping wound is another devastating blow for the mainstream media and the Democratic Party s resistance movement, whose mission is to remove Donald Trump for office.RT International reports At least five of the 2,800 emails stored on a laptop belonging to former Democratic congressman Anthony Weiner were marked confidential and involved delicate talks with Middle Eastern leaders and Hillary Clinton s top aide.On Friday, the State Department released a batch of around 2,800 work-related documents from the email account of Huma Abedin, who served as the deputy chief of staff to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.At least five of the emails found on Abedin s ex-husband s laptop were heavily redacted and marked classified and at confidential level, the third more sensitive class the US government uses below secret and top secret. The State Department applies the confidential classification level to information that the unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably could be expected to cause damage to the national security, according to the Government Publishing Office.While the documents were not marked as classified before they were released, some of the information recovered in the emails was considered classified. It is illegal for civilians to posses or read classified documents without a security clearance.The confidential emails, which date from 2010 to 2012, concern discussions with Middle Eastern leaders.Dishonest: despite being caught multiple times, Hillary Clinton is still in denial about mishandling classified material.One of the emails has the subject Egyptian MFA on Hamas-PLO talks, referring to the Palestine Liberation Organization. The email is mostly redacted, only mentioning that it is a further update on Hamas-PA talks, referring to the Palestinian Authority.Another four-page email contains a completely redacted call sheet to prepare Clinton for an upcoming call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.A call sheet in another 2010 email includes notes to guide Clinton through a call she would make to Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal. The purpose of the call was to inform Saud about an impending WikiLeaks disclosure. This appears to be the result of an illegal act in which a fully cleared intelligence officer stole information and gave it to a website. The person responsible will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, the call sheet instructed Clinton to say.Clinton was warning the Saudis the leak could contain information related to private conversations with your government on Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan, and asked the Saudi s to help the US prevent WikiLeaks from undermining our mutual interests. During a congressional hearing in 2016, former FBI Director James Comey said Abedin regularly forwarded emails to Weiner for him to print out for her so she could deliver them to the secretary of state. The emails were released in response to a 2015 lawsuit filed by conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch against the State Department after it failed to respond to a Freedom of Information request (FOIA) seeking: All emails of official State Department business received or sent by former Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin from January 1, 2009 through February 1, 2013 using a non- state.gov email address. In a statement issued Friday, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton called the release a major victory, adding that it was no surprise there were classified documents on Weiner s computer. It will be in keeping with our past experience that Abedin s emails on Weiner s laptop will include classified and other sensitive materials, Fitton said in a statement. That these government docs were on Anthony Weiner s laptop dramatically illustrates the need for the Justice Department to finally do a serious investigation of Hillary Clinton s and Huma Abedin s obvious violations of law. The emails were discovered on Weiner s laptop during an FBI investigation into allegations that he engaged in sexting with a 15-year-old girl. In September, Weiner was sentenced to 21 months in prison after he pleaded guilty to sending obscene material to a minor.The discovery of the emails led Comey to announce that the FBI was reopening an investigation into Clinton s use of a private email server 11 days before the 2016 presidential election. Clinton said the announcement contributed to her loss to Donald Trump See more at RTLast year, in effort to shore-up Clinton s crumbling reputation for being truthful to the public, her campaign published a bizarre 4,000-word fact sheet on the Clinton campaign website.As it turned out, Clinton s fact sheet was riddled with numerous false statements and other half-truths, including a lie that the FBI was conducting a security review when it was in fact conducting an investigation, and that she never sent or received classified information on her email account.This latest Weiner revelation is just another devastating blow to an already damaged political brand.Could Clinton mount a 2020 run?It s highly unlikely.READ MORE HILLARY NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Clinton FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV

Grey's Anatomy (season 15)

Hillary Campaign Manager Gets $7K a Month from Hillary Donor Linked to Economic Collapse Clintonworld is a giant sewer. Nothing about it can surprise. It plummets to infinite depths of slime, mold and rotting carrion. This is just another day in Clintonworld . John Podesta, who draws no salary from the campaign, is making $7,000 per month from the Sandler Foundation, run by Herb Sandler, Politico reported. The Sandlers ran World Savings Bank, which was sold to Wachovia in 2006 for $25.5 billion and which was accused of offering adjustable-rate mortgages that contributed to the housing collapse. Saturday Night Live got into trouble when it depicted the Sandlers as people who should be shot. Time Magazine listed them as one of 25 people to blame for the financial crisis. In the early 1980s, the Sandlers' World Savings Bank became the first to sell a tricky home loan called the option ARM. And they pushed the mortgage, which offered several ways to back-load your loan and thereby reduce your early payments, with increasing zeal and misleading advertisements over the next two decades. The couple pocketed $2.3 billion when they sold their bank to Wachovia in 2006. But losses on World Savings' loan portfolio led to the implosion of Wachovia, which was sold under duress late last year to Wells Fargo. Notorious right wing comedy show Saturday Night Live also featured the Sandlers On October 4, 2008, however, Saturday Night Live aired a skit in which the Sandlers were depicted as predatory lenders. Under their names, SNL placed the caption “people who should be shot.” Compounding the Sandlers’ negative press was a Time magazine list that identified them as two of the “25 people to blame for the financial crisis.” The New York Times also labeled the Sandlers “pariahs” -- and on December 24, 2008, the Times reportedthat their mortgages were the “Typhoid Mary” of the housing crisis. On February 15, 2009, CBS’s 60 minutes also aired a segment that featured the Sandlers’ World Savings Bank as one of the primary examples of how the mortgage industry had destroyed itself and unleashed an economic collapse.​ And this is whom Hillary's campaign chief is taking cash from.

Good morning. We’re trying something new for our readers in Asia and Australia: a morning briefing to your day. What do you like? What do you want to see here? Email us with your feedback at asiabriefing@nytimes. com. Here’s what you need to know: • With Election Day looming Tuesday, Hillary Clinton is holding her polling lead and celebrating an announcement from the F. B. I. that its latest review of her State Department email shows nothing in her handling of classified information that would merit further action against her. Donald J. Trump is crisscrossing the country in a rush. Mr. Trump received a scare at a rally in Reno, Nev. when a person in the crowd shouted — falsely, as it turned out — that someone had a gun. We’re offering unlimited access to NYTimes. com for the election, from now through Thursday morning. _____ • China’s National People’s Congress issued a rare interpretation of Hong Kong’s aimed at disqualifying two young lawmakers from taking office. The intervention could undermine the territory’s judicial system. On Sunday, in a confrontation that recalled the enormous demonstrations of 2014, the police used batons and pepper spray to drive off thousands of protesters attempting to storm the Chinese government’s Hong Kong headquarters. _____ • American warplanes are flying bombing missions on the Islamic State’s “leadership, command and control and resources” in the group’s Syrian base of Raqqa, while a force of at least 30, 000 Kurdish and Arab fighters marches toward the city. _____ • Schools in New Delhi are closed, construction has been halted, and a power plant has been shut as the city copes with choking smog for at least another day. Are you there? Let us know how you are coping. _____ • Some 190 countries are members of Interpol, the international police organization based in France. But some — notably Russia, Iran and Zimbabwe — have used the system’s international “wanted” notices to extend their reach against political foes. A major meeting of Interpol members opens in Bali today with heavy security, after Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, was roiled by enormous protests over a city official’s supposed insults to Islam. _____ • South Korean prosecutors are circling closer to President Park in the scandal engulfing the Blue House. The country has reacted with fury and shame to revelations that indicate that top leaders have been in thrall to a family of religious charlatans for decades. • Volkswagen’s $15 billion emissions fraud case has reached the top of the company. The chairman of the automaker’s supervisory board, Hans Dieter Pötsch, is being investigated by German prosecutors on suspicion of failing to notify shareholders quickly enough of the financial risks of the diesel emissions cheating scandal. • Apple’s App Store has been infiltrated by hundreds of fake shopping apps that expose customers to potential fraud and identity theft. • Oracle, the software giant, said its acquisition of NetSuite, a cloud storage company, for $9. 3 billion will be completed Monday, ending weeks of negotiations over the price. • Investors will be watching the American election closely. Here’s a snapshot of global markets. • Europe, Iran and Pakistan are forcing hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees to return to Afghanistan. [The New York Times] • The unexpectedly rapid approval of the Paris climate accord means that negotiators meeting this week in Morocco must speedily sort through a host of technical issues. [Reuters] • attacks on Hindu sites in Bangladesh worsened tensions set off by a Hindu youth’s Facebook post showing the god Shiva appearing in Mecca. [The New York Times] • Iranians, some eager to jeer at the “Great Satan,” tuned into live broadcasts of all three debates between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump. [The New York Times] • China’s Guangdong Province has banned exams, homework and writing assignments in kindergartens and ordered schools to make sure students play outdoors for two hours a day. [Asia Times] • Britain’s prime minister, Theresa May, is digging in for a “Brexit” battle if her government loses its appeal of a ruling requiring Parliamentary approval for the move. [The New York Times] • A Philippine court is expected to rule Tuesday on petitions to block President Rodrigo Duterte’s attempt to transfer the remains of Ferdinand E. Marcos, the country’s former dictator, to a heroes’ cemetery. [The New York Times] • The Philippine boxer Manny Pacquiao’s lopsided victory over Jesse Vargas for the WBO welterweight title was strong enough to revive talk of a rematch with his old foe Floyd Mayweather Jr. • The New York City Marathon was won by Mary Keitany of Kenya for a third consecutive year. A Eritrean, Ghirmay Ghebreslassie, took the men’s division, becoming the youngest winner in the race’s history. • A bus being tested in Finland holds promise for reducing city dwellers’ dependence on cars. • Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art, MONA, opens a new exhibition, “On the Origin of Art,” examining whether art has helped humans survive. The musings of four guest curators — “ ” — are here. How about a ghost story to start the week? The Mary Celeste, an American merchant ship, set sail from New York on this day in 1872, bound for Italy. About a month later, the vessel was found adrift in the Atlantic, less than two weeks after the last dated entry in the boat’s log. The captain, his wife and young daughter, and the crew were gone. The discovery set off one of the world’s most enduring maritime mysteries. Pirates, mutiny, a waterspout, a seaquake and even a giant squid attack have all been posited. A short story by Arthur Conan Doyle fueled more speculation. Foul play was possible, according to an 1873 account in The Times, citing a bloody sword found on board. Also left behind were personal items and the Mary Celeste’s cargo of denatured alcohol. Missing were navigational tools and the ship’s lifeboat, lending support to a theory put forward in the 2007 documentary “The True Story of the Mary Celeste. ” Some machinery was inoperative, leaving the captain no way to check whether the ship had taken on water in a recent storm. He might have mistakenly thought the ship was sinking and ordered an evacuation. “There’s so much nonsense written about this legend,” the director said when her film was released, adding, “The research goes on. ” Des Shoe contributed reporting. _____ Photographs may appear out of order for some readers. Accessing this version of the briefing should help. Your Morning Briefing is published weekday mornings. What would you like to see here? Contact us at asiabriefing@nytimes. com.

@AureliaFierros @piersmorgan fair enough, can you explain why this happens in the states so regularly then

These last several weeks, the American people have gotten a taste of what they d be getting with a Clinton or a Trump presidency. And, not surprisingly, they overwhelmingly prefer a Clinton presidency.According to a new poll released from Bloomberg, Hillary Clinton crushes right-wing blowhard Donald Trump by a whopping 12 points, 49-37 percent.Not only does the poll show Clinton with a commanding lead, 55 percent of respondents said they could never vote for Donald Trump. Astoundingly, 63 percent of women polled said they could never vote for him. Republicans need to figure out their next move quickly, because there is no way in hell their candidate can win if more than half of the country refuses to vote for him. Seeing that the poll was conducted when the shooting in Florida happened, Trump, hoping to cash in on a wave of fear, has a rude awakening.And the new poll shows Trump s biggest area of support, white men, may not be enough:For his part, Trump is winning 50 percent support from white men, compared to 33 percent for Clinton and 13 percent for Johnson. He s getting 54 percent support among evangelical Christians, while Clinton gets 36 percent from that group.White men are among Trump s strongest demographics. But even there he s not showing as much strength as the party s last nominee, Mitt Romney, who beat Obama in 2012 by 62 percent to 35 percent among white men, according to exit pollsLibertarian candidate Gary Johnson takes a commanding 9 percent of the vote, while 4 percent remain unsure and 1 percent said they will not be voting. It s no secret that Johnson s lead can be attributed to Trump s alienation of non-crazy Republicans.Ann Selzer, who oversaw the poll, said: Clinton has a number of advantages in this poll, in addition to her lead. Her supporters are more enthusiastic than Trump s and more voters overall see her becoming a more appealing candidate than say that for Trump. And what s even better: Americans aren t buying into Trump s racism and bigotry:Trump s suggestions that Obama hasn t taken forceful enough action to stop domestic terrorism because he sides with Muslims landed with a thud for the majority of Americans, with 61 percent disagreeing with the suggestion. A strong majority 69 percent also disagree that law enforcement agencies should increase surveillance of all American Muslims, even if it conflicts with civil liberties.While Trump is only slightly favored to handle issues of terrorism and violence, Clinton isn t far behind. And as the nation continues to be exposed to Trump s extremist policies on how to handle such situations, Clinton s numbers could rise.Trump is in trouble, and Republicans know it. If he keeps this up, he may very well end up being the next Barry Goldwater.Featured image via Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

As anyone who remotely follows the news knows, media whore Hillary has been dying for a reason to appear in photos unrelated to a story about her criminal activities. True to form, Hillary capitalizes on the birth of Chelsea s campaign baby by standing alone and waving to the crowd how very grandmotherly .You won t see the other set of grandparents in any pictures however, as the royal Clinton family has banned their son-in-laws family from appearing in any pictures with them Chelsea Clinton has emerged from hospital for the first time with her newborn son Aidan.The former First Daughter beamed at cameras on the steps of New York s Lenox Hill Hospital on Monday, flanked by her husband Marc Mezvinsky and parents Bill and Hillary Clinton.Despite the soaring temperatures, Hillary wore a button-down coat, while Chelsea opted for a floral mini-dress.Aidan, Chelsea s second child with husband Marc Mezvinsky, was born on Saturday in the $1,700-a-night maternity ward.- DMWho is Chelsea Clinton s father-in-law and why are he and his wife banned from appearing in pictures with Crooked Queen Hillary and her sexual predator husband? Edward Maurice Ed Mezvinsky, Chelsea Clinton s father-in-law and her daughter s grandfather, is a convicted Felon. The former Democrat Congressman from Iowa s 1st Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives, served two terms, from 1973 to 1977.Ed Mezvinsky has known Hillary Clinton since the days when he served on the House Judiciary Committee that decided the fate of President Richard Nixon. This harsh critic of President Richard Nixon, had called Nixon a crook and a disgrace to politics and the nation , and called for Nixon s impeachment.But, did you ever wonder who that allusive Nigerian Prince is who might be sending you those emails looking for money? Look no farther than the Clinton Family Tree.Through a series of Nigerian email scams and Ponzi schemes, Ed Mezvinsky, Chelsea Clinton s father-in-law embezzled more than $10 million dollars. In 2001, Ed Mezvinsky was convicted of 31 (out of 69!) charges of fraud, and served five years in federal prison. His fraud charges included bank, mail, wire, as well as other offenses involving financing bogus oil development and other trade deals in Africa.But don t think Ed doesn t keep it in the family. In addition to his law clients and friends, he even bilked his own (now deceased) mother-in-law out of money. To date in 2015, the Fraudster still owes over $9.4 million in restitution to his victims.A lot of political pundits have made allusions to the fact that the Clintons and the Mezvinkys behaviors are so similar, that it is what bonded the two. Be that as it may, the Clintons go to great lengths to never, ever, be seen or photographed with any of Chelsea s in-laws. So afraid is the Clinton Dynasty of being tarnished by the Mezvinkys that neither Ed nor his second wife and Marc s mother, Marjorie Sue Margolies-Mezvinsky, were allowed in any of Chelsea s wedding pictures. Conservative America

“@GlobalGrind: Not just Mike Brown… Second police shooting in #Ferguson leaves man in critical condition http://t.co/H2m52IGnwI” SMH

Lady Gaga and Julianne Moore are speaking out after the horrific terror attack that left at least 58 people dead and 515 injured in Las Vegas on Sunday night.The Hollywood stars both took to Twitter on Monday, demanding that politicians get to work on enacting stricter gun control laws in the wake of the tragedy, which is now the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history.I mourn this senseless loss of life. What will it take, #Congress, for you to act? @Everytown @MomsDemand #endgunviolence https://t.co/6HpuWk9ZLe Julianne Moore (@_juliannemoore) October 2, 2017 Cheap sound bites don t protect innocent lives, read a tweet on Moore s account, as she pointed out this is the eighth mass shooting just this year.It s okay to use guns in violent movies that make money for actresses like the hypocrite, Julianne Moore (see photo below), it s just not okay with her for everyday Americans to use guns to hunt or in self-defense.Lady Gaga took a more direct approach in getting her message out, tweeting at the President and Speaker of the House while stating that blood in on the hands of the men and women of Congress.Prayers are important but @SpeakerRyan @realDonaldTrump blood is on the hands of those who have power to legislate. #GunControl act quickly. https://t.co/bXZQ7enuEp xoxo, Gaga (@ladygaga) October 2, 2017Shortly after Lady Gaga blamed President Trump and Congress for the deaths of at least 58 and over 500 injured concertgoers in Las Vegas, she tweeted that she was trying to connect us all through inner peace. Wow! How most Americans don t need that kind of sick inner peace. My intention is to connect us all through inner peace. I believe we can calm inflammation in the world by calming each other. #meditation pic.twitter.com/6cUbvdsW09 xoxo, Gaga (@ladygaga) October 2, 2017Gun control Gaga is no stranger to using guns on stage as props, in fact, she s used them quite regularly, but who s counting in Hollywood? After all, it s not about what celebrities do with guns, it s what the little people (the ones who watch their movies and purchase their music) do with guns that matters to them Nice gun Gaga Gaga is clearly crazy for guns on stage Nice Rolling Stones cover Gaga where d you get the guns?In addition to offering up their condolences and prayers, President Trump and Speaker Ryan also ordered that all flags be flown at half-mast to pay tribute to the victims.That was not enough however for Gaga, who when first commenting on the attack wrote: This is terrorism plain and simple.Terror bares no race, gender or religion. Democrats & Republicans please unite now #guncontrol. Daily Mail

Caitlyn Jenner, formerly known as Bruce Jenner, has undergone successful sex reassignment surgery, according to a book of memoirs set to be released later this month. [According to excerpts published by Radar Online, the Jenner went under the knife for a “final surgery” in January of this year, just over two years after coming out as transgender in a blockbuster interview with Diane Sawyer in 2015. “The surgery was a success, and I feel not only wonderful but liberated,” Jenner reportedly writes in Secrets of My Life, a book of memoirs due out April 25. “I am telling you because I believe in candor,” Jenner reportedly writes in the book. “So all of you can stop staring. You want to know, so now you know. Which is why this is the first time, and the last time, I will ever speak of it. ” In April 2015, Jenner — who earned a gold medal in the decathlon at the 1976 Olympic games in Montreal — told Diane Sawyer in a interview that he had always been confused about his gender identity. “I am a woman,” Jenner said at the time. “It’s not like I’ve been dressing up like a woman, it’s like I’ve spent my whole life dressing like a man. ” Following the reveal, Jenner appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair, was named Glamour magazine’s “Woman of the Year” and was awarded the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the 2015 ESPY Awards. Jenner also starred in the reality series I Am Cait, which ran for two seasons on E!. In the upcoming memoir, Jenner reportedly writes that the decision to go under the knife was “complex,” but ultimately, “it’s just a penis. ” “I just want to have all the right parts,” Jenner reportedly writes. “I am also tired of tucking the damn thing in all the time. ” Jenner still appears regularly on the E! series Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Secrets of My Life is due out April 25. Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum

EAST LAS VEGAS — "Nevada is especially important because we're a swing state. Who here knows what a swing state is?" a Bernie Sanders campaign organizer had asked the room of 15 volunteers — overwhelmingly Latino and largely in their teens and 20s — during an introductory spiel that was part training and part pep rally. Silence. The question hung in the air just long enough to become awkward. "No one?" the organizer asked. Clearly surprised but only slightly deterred, he barreled on with the rest of his pitch. Many of Sanders's enthusiastic supporters are people who are interested in the presidential race because they're interested in Bernie Sanders, not the other way around. That's a big asset for a campaign that's relying on motivated volunteers: The Sanders campaign needs these young Latinos to spread Sanders's message of economic populism, and his extremely progressive immigration platform, to the rest of the Latino community. But it's also an illustration of just how much work Sanders's people have cut out for them in a very short amount of time. The campaign hopes that this work will cause Latinos to caucus for Sanders on Saturday in high enough numbers to win a state in what's become an unexpectedly close race — and, in the process, prove to observers that Sanders can win with nonwhites. The campaign's office in East Las Vegas is strategically located in a neighborhood the Sanders organizer referred to as "Little Mexico." It is also a few blocks from Rancho High School, a school of nearly 3,000 students, more than two-thirds of whom identify as Latino. This isn't symbolic — it's an important way to make sure Sanders's most devoted supporters can come to the office to call voters and canvass neighborhoods. The Sanders campaign's "Latino outreach strategy" is a matter of who is speaking on the candidate's behalf — but it doesn't involve changing what those people are saying. Forty-one percent of America's Latino voters, and 44 percent of Nevada's, are millennials. And as far as the Sanders campaign is concerned, they're just like any other millennials: They care about a $15 minimum wage and free college tuition, and they want to get money out of politics. In other words, the Sanders campaign's "pitch" to Latinos is strikingly similar to its pitch to everyone else: In the words of Nevada state director Joan Kato, Sanders is "someone who's always fought for equality and making sure the average person is not taken advantage of." In Nevada, at least, this message appeals to many young Latinos who are excited about Sanders's ability to transform a political system they don't fully buy into. It's not just that they agree with the positions Sanders is espousing; it's that they believe he will be a reliable champion for them if he's elected. "Bernie is the only candidate that really believes in the Fight for $15 movement," a young organizer told the group of volunteers in East Las Vegas, referring to the fact that Sanders's opponent in the primary, Hillary Clinton, has embraced a $12-an-hour minimum wage but won't go as high as $15. "We have to show that support just the way he's supporting us." Even though Sanders's economic message has won enthusiasm from many young Latinos, the candidate's position on immigration is still a key part of his Latino outreach strategy. For many Latino voters, immigration is a "threshold issue"; issues like health care, jobs, and education might be more important to them, but they won't even start evaluating a candidate — or party — on those issues if he or she doesn't support immigration reform. Early in Sanders's campaign, during an interview with Vox, he expressed skepticism about large-scale low-skilled immigration into the US — and it looked like he was setting himself up for attacks from the very vocal immigrant rights movement. But instead, the Sanders campaign turned his relative underemphasis on immigration prior to his candidacy into an asset for his campaign by bringing immigration activists in to craft an immigration platform that put him substantially to the left of Hillary Clinton. DREAMer activists Cesar Vargas and Erika Andiola joined the Sanders campaign last fall, with the task of designing the senator's immigration platform. Along with other Sanders staffers, and the candidate himself, they essentially crowdsourced the platform, asking immigrant activists and legal organizations for suggestions and input. "We were the people who presented the senator with this whole policy platform. They knew it was bold, and they accepted it," Vargas said. Vargas and Andiola had some good material to start with: Sanders's opposition to big business makes him a natural critic of private, for-profit prisons, and he'd already promised to abolish them. That wouldn't have as much of an impact on the overall prison population as most people think, but it would absolutely transform the immigration detention system — which is dominated by for-profit facilities. And for many grassroots immigration activists, curbing immigration detention and enforcement is a key goal. Many of the activists Vargas and Andiola talked to had personal experience with the detention system. One of them was Liz Hernandez, an activist with the United Coalition for Immigrant and Migrant Rights in Las Vegas. Hernandez was detained by immigration agents at the age of 10, along with her mother, 7-year-old sister, and 2-month-old brother. Her mother, who made and sold homemade cheeses to support the family, had to ask the agents for food and water for her children. Sixteen years later — and after having told her story countless times in her advocacy work — Hernandez crying as she recounts all of this for me: "It's disgusting to know that there are kids being criminalized at such a young age." Hernandez received protection from deportation and work permission under Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in 2012; her mother is still at risk of deportation. Hernandez and other local activists met with Sanders himself while Vargas and Andiola were working on the platform. She told him about her family's experiences. And, she says, "He was like, 'We're going to make something happen.'" His platform follows through on that commitment. While both Sanders and Clinton promise to go even further than President Obama in using executive action to protect unauthorized immigrants from deportations, Sanders puts a number on it: He'd protect up to 9 million unauthorized immigrants. And he'd even allow some parents who'd already been deported to return to the US and their families. It sounds like an immigration advocate's wish list — because it is. "I've never been asked to endorse a politician before," says Hernandez. "It's really hard for me to talk about a candidate, to say, 'You have to support this person.'" But Sanders won her over: The afternoon I meet her, she's the most diligent volunteer in the East Las Vegas office, calling voter after voter to urge them to caucus. As far as the Sanders campaign is concerned, their biggest problem is name recognition. Talk to some of their supporters, and you might think it's the only problem. Adriana Arévalo, an outreach strategist with the Sanders campaign, had a recent encounter with a woman at a soccer tournament who said she supported Hillary "'because she's the wife of Bill Clinton.' I said, 'Okay, but do you know what she's offering for you, for your family?'" Arévalo says the woman left the tournament as a Sanders supporter. But Sanders' campaign is making progress. One person I spoke to in Las Vegas (who asked not to be named because they're affiliated with a nonpartisan organization) said they're hearing from, "like, Latina housekeepers: 'El viejito, he has some good ideas.'" Viejito is an affectionate, even nicknamey way to say "the old man." "That they already have a nickname for him, wow." "There's barely any people who reject Bernie for his ideas," says Cynthia, a 17-year-old Rancho High School student and Sanders volunteer. Her confidence is brimming. "If people were more politically aware, they'd already know who Bernie was." This is an appealing narrative for the Sanders campaign in Nevada, because it presents their only problem as something they have the resources to solve: All they need is word of mouth, and they have an enthusiastic young volunteer core to accomplish that. Sometimes it can be hard to tell how big the groundswell of Latino support for Sanders really is. The campaign presents its Nevada operation as a response to popular demand: There are 12 offices in Nevada, multiple staffers took pains to mention, more than any other presidential campaign. But political journalist Jon Ralston (considered the "dean" of the local press corps) thinks that's mostly hype: "Yeah, you have 12 offices, but if the lights aren't on in 11 of them..." he says airily. Ralston is also skeptical of the campaign's claim that it's been endorsed by five Spanish-language publications in Nevada; when the campaign announced the first three endorsements, he called them "three Spanish-language newspapers nobody has heard of, including an ad mag and an online news aggregator." And in other cases, the campaign's aggressive enthusiasm can look like straight-up aggression. A student government leader at the College of Southern Nevada, who was initially listed among the Sanders campaign's "steering committee," later said that she hadn't known signing up for the committee implied an endorsement of Sanders and that she would actually be supporting Hillary Clinton. The most powerful union in southern Nevada, the Culinary Union Local 226, also harshly criticized the Sanders campaign for sneaking into employee dining rooms and canvassing for Sanders while wearing union pins — a move that, several advocates in Nevada stressed to me, could have gotten the union in serious trouble. The Sanders campaign has a mixed record when it comes to conventional campaign tactics, which makes it all the more important that its word-of-mouth, passion-driven campaign succeed. The passionate Sanders supporters are the ones who are expected to spread the word to less politically engaged members of the community: that there is in fact a second Democrat running for president, and that he's the one who really wants to help them afford college and help their parents avoid deportation. The Clinton campaign urges its staff and volunteers to focus on maximizing "voter contacts" — "the goal is that canvassers have knocked on your door four to five times in the last two months," Clinton communications staffer Jorge Silva tells me — and to develop spreadsheets of who needs a ride to the polls. The Sanders campaign also wants to reach as many voters as frequently as possible, of course — but it urges its volunteers not to use their scripts when calling potential caucus-goers, and instead to share their personal stories of why they support the senator. "We are the face of the political revolution," one staffer told the East Las Vegas volunteers, "and that's why we gotta call everybody and their moms, like, 10 times." Spreading the word is obviously important as a force multiplier. But there's a more basic reason for the focus on evangelism: Many of Sanders's most passionate supporters can't themselves vote. Some of the young volunteers can caucus — Cynthia, for example — will be 18 by Election Day in November, so Nevada law allows her to caucus in February. Furthermore, Nevada allows same-day voter registration for Democratic caucus-goers, something that was a major factor in helping Obama take more of the state's delegates than Clinton in 2008 (though he lost the popular vote). But even with early eligibility and same-day registration, many of Sanders's most fervent Latino supporters aren't eligible to caucus. That doesn't stop them from organizing for the candidate, as staffers stress time and time again. But it could still set a ceiling for the candidate. Sanders's best asset in the caucuses is the fact that his supporters are likely to be more informed about when the caucuses are and more passionate about showing up to them. Some of the most passionate of those supporters are young Latinos, of two very different types. The first are the kind who have been involved in politics long enough that they don't tend to fall in love with politicians but feel they've finally found someone to trust: the Cesar Vargases and Liz Hernandezes of the world. They're noncitizens (like many of their peers in the immigrant rights movement), and they can't vote. The second are the kind who aren't otherwise interested in politics — who don't know what a swing state is — but who see Sanders as a politician worth paying attention to. Some of them are eligible to vote like Cynthia; others are simply too young. At the East Las Vegas office, a campaign organizer tried to prepare a few young volunteers to call potential caucus-goers. When he turned to ask another staffer for clarification about something, one of the volunteers shyly raised his hand and gestured at the young woman next to him: "We actually kind of have to leave right now." Their ride had arrived.

@PauleyP MERCI :) #JeSuisCharlie

A new report shows that only seven out of 10 of Air Force planes are in good enough condition to fly. [Official statistics say that three out of 10 aircraft in the Air Force fleet are not in commission because they are getting upgraded, undergoing maintenance, inspections, or repair work, the Air Force Times reports. The problem also shows no sign of slowing down. The rate, or the way the Air Force measures how much its fleet is ready to fight or fly other measures, has been showing a steady decrease. rates for Air Force helicopters and airplanes were at nearly 74 percent in 2014. In 2015, the rate dropped to 73 percent, and in 2016 the rate dropped to 72 percent. The reason for this decline in aircraft is due to an aging Air Force fleet. Air Force leaders have said that the Air Force’s aging fleet and decline in readiness rates have been a problem for years. “Our highest investment priority is in improving readiness,” acting Air Force Secretary Lisa Disbrow said March 3 at the Air Force Association’s Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Florida. “The aircraft we have on the ramp are too old. We need to revitalize the fleet. ” The declining aircraft readiness rate can also be attributed to a shortage of experienced maintenance airmen to fix aircraft, although the Air Force wants to make its goal to eliminate that shortfall by the end of 2019. While the Air Force is dealing with an aging fleet on Earth, they are also training airmen for the possibility of war waged in space, Military. com reported.

@JHW252 yes - and they should have been more forthcoming -regardless innocent kid dead! @ckolacia @stand4all @ScottLofquist @NBCNews

On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher stated that President Trump violates the “Pay your taxes” rule and “I worry that if half the country wants this guy to be president, we do need the UN to step in, or the United Federation of Planets, or something. ” Maher said Trump “violates every rule. Don’t lie. Don’t accuse people of things they’re not guilty of. Don’t boast. Pay your taxes. Serve your country. Don’t be a racist, don’t insult … the handicapped people, and other people who are not as lucky to be as as you are, Donald. I worry that if half the country wants this guy to be president, we do need the UN to step in, or the United Federation of Planets, or something. ” Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett

@qb_ramirez @TheBHolland @CrystalSaidThat not only dont want to have, but openly try to silence and stop dead in its tracks.

According to a recent poll, "there are more young Republicans enrolled in their parents' (health insurance) plans than young Democrats."

Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen celebrate 29th birthday with Olsen Olympics

@NajdPlateau @LouiseMensch u kill b/c your prophet, let me say that again a prophet of ur fucked up religion, holy fuck thats fucked up

Posted on July 15, 2015 by Dr. Eowyn | 33 Comments It’s a topsy-turvy world when law-breakers — those who illegally enter and stay in the United States — are sacred cows, while those who criticize the law-breakers are ostracized and demonized. On June 16, 2015, when Donald Trump announced that he’s entering the crowded race to become the 2016 Republican presidential nominee, he made some remarks about illegal immigration which brought the wrath of the PC Left on his head. Trump said: “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. I will build a great wall – and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me – and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words.” For saying that, one business after another severed their ties with Trump. Univision and Comcast’s NBCUniversal cancelled plans to broadcast Trump’s Miss Universe beauty pageant. Mattress giant Serta said it will stop selling Trump-branded products. Department store giant Macy’s also cut its ties with Trump. Such righteous indignation! You would think Trump were a heinous mass murderer or a child-molester or serial rapist or bestialist! But Macy’s anti-Trump move has backfired. TMZ reports, July 13, 2015: Macy’s is paying the price for sacking Donald Trump, because we’ve learned thousands of customers are cutting up their Macy’s credit card in protest. Sources connected to the department store tell TMZ, Macy’s has received complaints from approximately 30,000 customers since ending its relationship with Trump nearly 2 weeks ago. We’re told the store has been “inundated with complaints” from customers who believe the department store is unfairly punishing Trump for his views on immigration. Our sources say thousands of customers have vowed never to shop at Macy’s again and many of them say they’re cutting up their Macy’s credit card to make a statement. We’re told the complaints have come in various ways, including phone, Facebook and email. A Macy’s spokesperson would only say, “Our Facebook page is often times used by our customers to express their feelings or points of view. Many times it does not correlate to any action.” Join the boycott against Macy’s!

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A former U.S. representative whose lavish office in Washington raised questions about use of taxpayer dollars was indicted on Thursday on charges of defrauding the federal government and campaign committees and attempting to cover it up, according to court documents. Aaron Schock, a 35-year-old former Republican congressman from Illinois, was indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice on 24 counts, including wire fraud, theft of government funds and filing false federal income tax returns. Schock maintained his innocence on Thursday before the indictment was announced. “Neither I nor anyone else intentionally did anything wrong,” he said in a statement. “As I have said before, we might have made errors among a few of the thousands and thousands of financial transactions we conducted, but they were honest mistakes – no one intended to break any law.” Schock’s position in public office did not put him above the law, the Department of Justice said. “These charges allege that Mr. Schock deliberately and repeatedly violated federal law, to his personal and financial advantage,” Jim Lewis, U.S. attorney for the Central District of Illinois, said in a statement on Thursday. “Mr. Schock held public office at the time of the alleged offenses, but public office does not exempt him or anyone else from accountability for alleged intentional misuse of public funds and campaign funds.” Schock, elected to the, U.S. House of Representatives in 2008 at the age of 27, gained a following for posting flashy photos on social media of himself traveling around the world. But he was hounded with questions after The Washington Post reported last year about lavish decorations in his Capitol Hill office based on the PBS period melodrama “Downton Abbey.” Although staff told the Post that the interior design work had been done for free, the story prompted more investigations into Schock’s spending habits, with several media outlets reporting he failed to disclose some expenditures and had to repay others after improperly using taxpayer funds. On Thursday, Schock said before the indictment that his faith in the Justice Department had been eroded. “This indictment will look bad, but underneath it is just made-up allegations of criminal activity arising from unintentional administrative errors,” George Terwilliger III, Schock’s attorney, said in a statement prior to the indictment. A summons will be issued to Schock by the U.S. Clerk of the Court for an arraignment date in Springfield, Illinois.

When a devastating earthquake rocked Mexico City on Tuesday, 32 years to the day after another deadly temblor, the city s traumatized inhabitants struggled to understand why disaster had struck twice on the same date. Just two hours after a city-wide seismic drill to mark the earlier tragedy, Mexico City was shaken by a magnitude 7.1 quake, its second major tremor in less than two weeks, which killed at least 100 people in the capital and 230 nationwide. The annual drill is a legacy of the 1985 quake, a harrowing disaster imprinted on the national psyche after claiming over 5,000 lives in Mexico City. In a country with a long history of supernatural beliefs, the timing of the quakes triggered conspiracy theories and reopened old wounds. It seems like a thing of the devil, said Luis Pastrana, a 52-year-old industrial designer who lived through both tremors. Another Cursed September 19, Mexican daily El Economista proclaimed on its front page on Wednesday. In Tlatelolco, a modernist housing project, residents gather every Sept. 19 for morning mass at the site where two tower blocks collapsed 32 years ago, killing hundreds. On Tuesday, when the ground began to shake several hours after the service, locals swarmed the historic plaza where they congregate after each quake, crying and praying. Some suffered panic attacks. Some were positing that the Mexican government must have known the temblor was coming, and others speculated that North Korea was involved, said Antonio Fonseca, 66, a local history expert. They believe fantastical things, he said. Since there is no explanation, there are lots of rumors. Situated at the intersection of three tectonic plates, Mexico is one of the world s most earthquake-prone countries, and the capital is particularly vulnerable due to its location on top of an ancient lake bed. Tuesday s quake striking on the 1985 anniversary appeared to be purely coincidental, said Jana Pursley, a geophysicist with the United States Geological Survey, noting that the epicenters were hundreds of kilometers apart. But for some Mexico City residents, the timing may have made lingering anxieties more acute, said Elizabeth Willems, a local psychologist who has treated patients coping with post-traumatic stress disorder from the 1985 disaster. In a phenomenon known as the anniversary effect, distress levels can spike as the date of a traumatic event approaches, Willems said. The repetition of the event would have compounded the stress, she added. Willems said she had heard from some of her patients who were rattled by the latest quake. The trauma of the 1985 tremor frequently arises, she said. It s almost like working with someone who was in Manhattan during the events of September 11. It s almost a question I ask automatically: Where were you that day? she said. Maria del Carmen Herrera, a 60-year-old resident of the Juarez neighborhood who survived the 1985 quake, said she was struck by a premonition during the earthquake drill on Tuesday morning. I was afraid. I thought, it s going to shake, she said. Those of us who survived 1985, we re left marked forever. For Fonseca, nothing can compare to the devastation of the 1985 quake. But as he watched the ceiling trembling in his 10th-floor apartment on Tuesday, he feared the worst. I say that coincidences don t exist, he said. This was something I don t know how to classify.

Sarah Palin did that thing where her mouth began moving but her brain was in no way involved, and this time she managed to say some stuff that was both so offensive and so stupid that she stunned an entire room full of Republican donors into silence. Then people started laughing.Palin was speaking in her capacity as a Donald Trump surrogate to a room full of Milwaukee GOP voters (and unfortunately for her, a good number of reporters). Wisconsin is crucial for the Republican primary, and her presence there was meant to bolster Trump s sagging poll numbers. As a winner take all state, Wisconsin could be the key to whether Trump gets the nomination before the convention or doesn t. The stakes are very high and he sent in Sarah Palin. She failed. She failed really, really badly.Her singular ability to create baffling word salads was out in full display. Reporters quickly began firing off tweets documenting the cringeworthy performance. By all accounts, Palin was met with a pretty unenthusiastic crowd. And things only got worse.At Milwaukee GOP dinner, Sarah Palin intro'd as "icon to conservatives everywhere." Man in the back snorts. Polite applause as she walks up. Matt Flegenheimer (@mattfleg) April 2, 2016How do you know Palin has faded? 8 mins into her speech at GOP dinner and no applause yet. Some eye rolls and phone checking tho. Philip Rucker (@PhilipRucker) April 2, 2016One moment did make people sit up, though. During Palin s rant, she floated the theory that undocumented immigrants are flocking to the United States because they are promised free soccer balls and gift baskets when they arrive.In Milwaukee, Sarah Palin says illegal immigrants who come across Mexican border get "gift baskets with soccer balls." Reid J. Epstein (@reidepstein) April 2, 2016Sarah Palin just said that immigrants are being enticed over the border with gift baskets (???) Rosie Gray (@RosieGray) April 2, 2016Who are giving these people soccer ball-filled gift baskets? Trump s opponent Ted Cruz and his friend conservative radio host Glenn Beck. Of course.On illegal immigrants, Palin says Trump's opponents are "inducing and seducing them with gift baskets." Patrick Svitek (@PatrickSvitek) April 2, 2016In fact, as Mediaite notes, Palin s bizarre rant about soccer balls may stem from a two year old story about how Glenn Beck went to the border during the child immigrant crisis in 2014 with supplies for the children. At the time, Beck (and Palin) blamed Obama for the children being sent to the border to escape violence and famine in South and Central America. Beck enlisted Ted Cruz to help deliver the packages. It was their way of opportunistically doing something nice for the kids, while also publicly shaming a president that they hated.What s baffling is that Palin seems to believe that the soccer balls doled out by Glenn Beck in 2014 actually drove immigrants to come to America. In her delusional telling, Ted Cruz a fanatical anti-immigrant crusader is pro-immigration because he took part in a photo shoot with detained immigrant children waiting to be deported in 2014. If your eyes just rolled into the back of your head, imagine sitting in a room with her as she makes that pitch. The crowd began openly mocking her.seeing some people in the crowd talking amongst themselves as Palin speaks, some laughing (and not with her, more at her) Rosie Gray (@RosieGray) April 2, 2016It s safe to say, Sarah Palin didn t win Trump any votes in Milwaukee and may have actually cost him a few.Watch Palin s insane speech below:Featured image via Alex Wong/Getty Images

Attorney General Jeff Sessions hit back against any implication of improper meetings with Russian officials in a prepared opening to his testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Tuesday. [“Let me state this clearly colleagues. I have never met with or had any conversation with any Russian or any foreign officials concerning any type of interference with any campaign or election in the United States,” Sessions told the committee. “Further, I have no knowledge of any such conversations by anyone connected to the Trump campaign. ” He then became more indignant, saying: The suggestion that I participated in any collusion or that I was aware of any collusion with the Russian government to hurt this country, which I have served with honor for 35 years, or to undermine the integrity of our democratic process, is an appalling and detestable lie. The attorney general has been dogged by implications of dishonesty and impropriety regarding his supposed contacts with the Russians since it became clear he neglected to mention meeting Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak at the Republican National Convention during his confirmation hearings. Some Democrats have even called for Sessions to resign over the matter. Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Sen. Mark Warner ( ) opened the hearing imputing a possible additional meeting between Sessions and Kisylak at the Mayflower Hotel in April 2016. Sessions countered this suggestion. His prepared remarks insisted: I did not have any private meetings nor do I recall any conversations with any Russian officials at the Mayflower Hotel. I did not attend any meetings at that event. Prior to the speech, I attended a reception with my staff that included at least two dozen people and President Trump. Though I do recall several conversations I had during that reception, I do not have any recollection of meeting or talking to the Russian Ambassador or any other Russian officials. If any brief interaction occurred in passing with the Russian Ambassador during that reception, I do not remember it. After the speech, I was interviewed by the news media, which had gathered as I remember in a different room, and then I left the hotel. As for the confirmed meeting between the pair at the RNC, which became the basis of his alleged “lie” at his confirmation hearing, Sessions was equally unconvinced. “There is the assertion that I did not answer Senator Franken’s question honestly at my confirmation hearing. Colleagues, that is false,” Sessions said to his fellow senators, smiling as he corrected himself. “I can’t say colleagues anymore … former colleagues. ” “This is what happened,” Sessions continued: Senator Franken asked me a rambling question after some six hours of testimony that included dramatic, new allegations that the United States intelligence community, the U. S. intelligence community, had advised Trump that “there was a continuing exchange of information during the campaign between Trump’s surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government. ” I was taken aback by that explosive allegation, which he said was being reported as breaking news that very day and which I had not heard. I wanted to refute — immediately — any suggestion that I was part of such activity. I replied, quote, “Senator Franken, I’m not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I didn’t have — did not have communications with the Russians, and I’m unable to comment on it,” end quote. That was the context in which I was asked the question and in that context it was a fair and accurate response to the charge as I understood it. Session explicitly acknowledged the meetings between him an Kislyak, one at his Senate office and the other after a speech Sessions delivered at the RNC last July, but told the committee, “Not one thing happened that was improper in any one of these meetings. ” But Sessions also took issue with the entire idea his seeing the Russian ambassador had anything to do with the investigation into Russian election interference that ostensibly is the subject of Tuesday’s hearing. “Whether I ever attended a reception where the Russian Ambassador was also present is entirely beside the point of this investigation into Russian interference with the 2016 campaigns,” he said.

@Boazziz To The Middle Ages... http://t.co/QlmujjUbRo

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign canceled an event in Iowa on Wednesday with former President Bill Clinton and vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine after the deadly shooting of two police officers. The campaign announced the cancellation of the Des Moines “get out the vote” event after two Iowa police officers were shot dead in separate “ambush-style” killings as they sat in their patrol cars in the Des Moines area.

@amg503 yeah it's all been really extreme

Headlined to H3 10/28/16 - Advertisement - GOP presidential contender Donald Trump giddily and predictably wasted no time when FBI Director James Comey announced that the agency was looking at more Clinton emails. For the umpteenth time, Trump branded her a criminal and demanded that Americans not let her "criminal enterprise" into the Oval Office. No matter that Comey made it clear that there is no evidence at the moment that there was anything improper, let alone illegal, in the emails. But the revelation that the Feds were looking at them coming in the stretch run to the White House was more than enough to set off talk of the perennially mentioned October surprise that could derail a presidential candidate's presidential bid; in this case the candidate being Clinton. Even if there is something amiss in the emails, it won't change the race's outcome. Trump's path to an electoral vote win was always dicey at best, but more likely, impossible. The big electoral states such as California, New York, Illinois, Maryland, Washington, and a handful of other less electoral rich states are solid lock down Democratic states. The six or seven key swing states that are crucial, either trend Democratic. In nearly all cases, they voted for President Obama in his election and re-election bids, and are almost certain to stay that way through Election Day. Having said that, the email flap just won't go away. This does pose something else that could be problematic for Clinton in the White House. That's turning the GOP into an even more ferocious, obstructionist, take-no-prisoners party that will wage open war against her administration. Trump and the GOP have hammered home the line that Clinton is shady, untrustworthy and, less charitably, a serial liar. It's had an effect. Her approval and popularity ratings have hovered just slightly above those of Trump. In some pithy polls, voters vote "neither" for and not for either her or Trump. The race to the bottom in the presidential campaign has been fed by the near fetish focus by much of the mainstream media and far too many pundits on the sex and corruption allegations against respectively Trump and Clinton. The FBI's announcement of more email probes means that Clinton will have to take precious time out from her campaign focus on the issues that should and do really matter to again answer questions about what she did and why she did it with her emails. Reporters will shout this at her no matter what point she's trying to make about jobs, health care, or a foreign policy matter. Once in the Oval office, this fetish isn't likely to end, Trump and the GOP will see to that. The opening salvo came from Arizona Senator John McCain when he saber rattled Clinton by calling for the rejection of any Clinton SCOTUS pick. Even if the Democrats take back the Senate, that threat is still not just hot air. The GOP will still have enough Senate votes to delay, foot drag, obstruct, harass, pick and probe endlessly at, and ultimately filibuster a Clinton pick. The hope being that this will force Clinton to withdraw the pick, and send the message that the choice for the High Court must pass the hard-nosed conservative ideological litmus test that's the GOP set piece for a SCOTUS judge. The warfare will be even worse in the House which the GOP almost certainly will control. House Speaker Paul Ryan gave a huge signal just how fierce that warfare against her will be. He was barely a step behind Trump in climbing all over the Comey announcement about the emails to lambaste Clinton. - Advertisement - If Clinton moves quickly as she's promised with her plan to ramp up spending on jobs and economic reconstruction to the tune of $300 billion, this will send the GOP scurrying even faster to the barricades. It will try and toss every barrier it can in her way, making all kinds of wild charges that the spending is nothing more than a pork barrel, gravy leaden, pay out to the urban poor, and disadvantaged, at the expense of the long suffering, high tax paying white middle-class. Clinton takes office with the GOP manufactured and Trump fed cloud of suspicion hanging heavily over her. The great danger is that this will plant the seed even deeper in the public that the Clintons are the personification of sleaze. This in turn would blur, ignore and flat out dodge any real talk about tax reform job growth and the economy, health care, wealth and income inequality, civil rights, environmental concerns and criminal justice reforms. Clinton's continuing email problems can't make Trump into what he isn't and never was. And that's a credible, qualified choice to occupy the Oval Office. It just makes it that much easier for the GOP to do even more to make it harder for Clinton who is that choice to do the job that she will be elected to do. Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His latest book is "What We Can Expect from President Clinton" (Amazon Kindle) He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on Radio One. He is the host of the weekly Hutchinson Report on KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles and the Pacifica Network. - Advertisement -

TALLINN (Reuters) - NATO head Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday all countries must comply with sanctions on North Korea as the international community ratchets up pressure on the reclusive regime following its largest nuclear test to date. Asked if he was worried that Russia was resisting stepping up U.N. Security Council sanctions on North Korea, Stoltenberg told reporters before meeting the European Union s defense ministers: There are already sanctions agreed in the UN and it is extremely important that those sanctions are fully implemented.

This is the 136th world-famous FOTM Caption Contest! Here’s the pic: You know the drill: Enter the contest by submitting your caption as a comment on this thread (scroll down until you see the “LEAVE A REPLY” box), not via email or on Facebook. The winner of the Caption Contest will get a gorgeous Award Certificate of Excellence and a year’s free subscription to FOTM ! FOTM writers will vote for the winner. Any captions proffered by FOTM writers, no matter how brilliant (ha ha), will not be considered. This contest will be closed in a week, at the end of next Tuesday, November 8, 2016. To get the contest going, here’s my caption: “Why aren’t I 50 points ahead, you deplorable little people??*#@!!” For the winner of our last Caption Contest, click here . Seen any good pics that you think would be great for our Caption Contest? Email them to us! FOTM4ever@gmail.com

The White House announced on Tuesday that U.S. President Donald Trump would travel to Florida later this week as the administration continues to monitor the damage from Hurricanes Irma and Harvey. The president and the entire administration continue to monitor the situation in Puerto Rico, the United States Virgin Islands, Florida, Texas and all areas affected by Hurricanes Irma and Harvey, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in making the announcement.

SAN FRANCISCO — When Steven P. Jobs ran Apple, the company’s devices were distinguished by their polished software and famous iTunes store. Today, critics and even loyal fans are taking shots at Apple’s buggy software and Apple Music, its new streaming music service. With its hardware sales now slowing, Apple is under pressure to fix its software and online services, which have become increasingly important to consumers. So at its annual conference for software developers on Monday, the iPhone maker tried to demonstrate that it was still a purveyor of software and services. Brian X. Chen, Farhad Manjoo and Vindu Goel attended Apple’s conference keynote in San Francisco and analyzed what matters about the announcements that Apple made. Apple announced: ■ Improvements in the Apple Watch operating system. ■ Changes in the operating system for Apple TV, called tvOS. ■ A rebranding of its Mac operating system. ■ An expansion of Apple Pay. ■ Opening up Siri to developers. ■ Improvements in photos and maps. ■ Subscriptions through Apple News. ■ Opening up its messaging service to developers ■ A new interface for Apple Music. Here were the main points: Farhad: Apple divided its presentation into four segments focused on each of its computer operating systems — one each for iPhone, the Mac, the Apple Watch and Apple TV. That segmentation suggests Apple’s worldview. This is a company that still sees the tech world as defined by separate physical devices. Sure, it will integrate these devices through some features (including some new ones it showed today) but fundamentally each Apple device is its own, and the internet is merely the glue between them. That is a startlingly different — and, really, a kind of — view of tech, especially compared to the view that Google presented at its recent developer conference. In Google’s view, the internet is the central operating system — it’s the place where all your data and tech intelligence reside. The next era of the tech industry will be defined by which of these worldviews becomes dominant Brian: One big takeaway was that Apple has a lot of catching up to do in online services. Most of Apple’s noteworthy announcements on Monday matched features already offered by other internet companies, namely Amazon and Google. Following the footsteps of Amazon’s Echo smart speaker, Apple expanded Siri, its voice assistant, by allowing app developers to take advantage of voice controls. After Google’s Photos app won fanfare with its automatic organization features, Apple announced that its photos app would have some smarter organization tools, too, like the ability to stitch photos automatically into video montages called Memories. In addition, Apple added some smarts to its Maps service, like the ability to find nearby points of interest such as gas stations — a feature long supported by Google’s Waze mapping service. Apple executives have repeatedly said the company doesn’t strive to be first: It prides itself on coming up with better solutions later. (The iPhone, for example, came out much later than previous smartphones.) The question is, does it pay for Apple to be late in improving its online services, which only get smarter over time? Farhad: Though lots of developers create apps for the iPhone, Apple has long been careful about how much access it gives developers to crucial parts of its operating system. That seems to be changing. This presentation was marked by much greater access — Apple now allows developers to create new experiences in Apple Maps, to interact with Siri, to get access to its Messages service and to get access to the lock screen and phone interface. Similar access has been available to developers on Google’s Android operating system. Now Apple seems to be going out of its way to cater to developers, too. Brian: Apple announced a new version of its operating system, Watch OS, powering Apple Watch. Notably, Apple started the keynote with Apple Watch, which signifies the increasing importance of the gadget, the first piece of hardware introduced by Apple under the leadership of its chief executive, Timothy D. Cook. Vindu: Apple repositioned the watch as more of a health monitor, putting the activity tracker in a more prominent place and encouraging competitive sharing of workouts with friends. Brian: The new fitness features of the Apple Watch place the product in more direct competition with Fitbit, the largest wearables maker. Brian: Eddy Cue, head of Apple’s software and services, announced improvements in the operating system powering Apple TV, called tvOS. That includes a feature called single : People have complained about how long it takes to log into individual services like Hulu, Netflix and Showtime. Now, users will be able to sign into all network apps with a single universal login. Apple essentially believes the future of the television screen will be driven by apps. apps could make the big screen smarter than the interface of standard cable boxes. Vindu: Over all, the improvements in Apple TV are modest. But some tighter integration with live TV networks does set up Apple to possibly become a TV provider for as more channels offer their services over the internet. Brian: Apple rebranded its Mac operating system, which was called OS X for 15 years. It will now be called MacOS, bringing it in line with the branding schemes of Apple’s other software products (tvOS, WatchOS, iOS). With its new Mac operating system, called MacOS Sierra, Apple is putting the clout of its Mac operating system behind the Apple Watch. Users wearing the Apple Watch will be able to unlock their Macs without entering a user name or password. Apple also expanded Siri, its voice assistant, to become available in the Mac operating system. The move is a response to Google, which recently said it would expand its virtual assistant to many products, including a chat app called Allo and a smart speaker called Home. Vindu: Apple is trying to make Apple Pay more useful for retailers. The company said Apple Pay, its payment service, is coming to the web for the first time, with dozens of retailers already lined up to use it. However, it may not be easy enough to use to succeed in transforming online checkouts, where other services like PayPal have failed. Buying a product using Apple Pay on a Mac still requires you to authenticate the purchase by putting your finger on your iPhone — an extra step and extra device to pull out. Brian: Apple unveiled a big upgrade for Siri, allowing outside app developers to take advantage of voice controls. Now Siri can do things like summon an Uber car, send a message through a chat app like WhatsApp or send someone cash with apps like Square Cash. The move helps Apple play with Amazon, which already lets developers add capabilities to its smart speaker, Echo. Google also has said it plans to allow outside developers to make their apps and services work with its smart speaker, Home, due for release this fall. Farhad: This opening up of Siri is an improvement, but Apple was unclear about how expansive this system will be. How many apps will be able to use Siri? What functions will Siri be able to handle for them? Can Siri handle very sophisticated requests, like ones that depend on multiple apps — for instance, “Call an Uber five minutes before my next meeting”? Apple hasn’t specified. Given that voice is becoming an increasingly important interface for the next generation of computing, Apple’s progress here could be a key benchmark for its future. Vindu: Good news for publishers: Apple News, which has 50 million monthly active users, will let people subscribe to get every article from their favorite publications, including those with pay walls like The Wall Street Journal. Apple News has been a bit of a stepchild, with publishers largely focusing their efforts on Facebook, Twitter and Google’s AMP to speed up the display of articles on the mobile web. Will this get news organizations on board? Vindu: Apple is challenging Facebook Messenger, one of the most popular messaging apps in the world, by opening up its Messages service to outside developers. Facebook has made a big play to establish Messenger as a place to conduct all kinds of activities, from ordering an Uber car to watching videos. Apple is now matching that, but with the full array of developers that use iOS instead of the handful that have chosen to work with Facebook. (It won’t hurt the appeal to users that Apple is making emoji triple their previous size and automatically suggesting emoji replacements for words in messages.) Vindu: Apple said it had 15 million subscribers to Apple Music, but the streaming music service has gotten off to a slow start. Apple said it had learned from the experience so far and unveiled a redesign of Apple Music that simplifies navigation and makes it easier to find your favorite music. But with more popular apps like Spotify soon able to tap Siri, it’s unclear whether the changes will be enough to dislodge competitors. Apple’s iTunes software for buying and organizing music saw no upgrades.

Myanmar national security adviser Thaung Tun told Reuters on Monday that Rohingya Muslims who had fled to neighboring Bangladesh to escape violence in Rakhine State would be able to return but the process would have to be discussed. We will make sure that everybody who left their home can return to their home but this is a process we have to discuss, he said after a ministerial meeting on the crisis hosted by British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. We want to make sure that everybody who needs humanitarian assistance gets it, without discrimination. That is one of the things we agreed on, Tun said.

Taylor Swift's 'Look What You Made Me Do' Breaks Records

"Look at what’s happening last night in Sweden. Sweden, who would believe this? Sweden. They took in large numbers. They’re having problems like they never thought possible."

Pope Francis travels to Colombia this week to encourage a fledgling peace process that ended half a century of war between a succession of governments and the guerrilla group FARC but has left the country deeply divided. Francis, making his 20th foreign trip as pontiff and his fifth to his native Latin America, will spend five days in the country, visiting the capital Bogota and the cities of Villavicencio, Medellin and Cartagena. The Argentine pope had delayed accepting a government and Church invitation to visit Colombia, where about 80 percent of the population is Catholic, until a viable peace process was under way. He had wanted to go for a long time. Now the moment has come, Vatican spokesman Greg Burke said. Leftist FARC, by far Colombia s biggest rebel group, introduced its new political party last week, a major step in its transition into a civilian organization after more than 50 years of war that killed 220,000 people. Under its 2016 peace deal with the government, most FARC fighters were granted amnesty and allowed to participate in politics. Whether the rebels will secure support from Colombians, many of who revile them, remains to be seen. The peace accord, which was brokered by Cuba and Norway, was initially rejected by a less than 1 percent margin in a referendum before being modified and enacted. Like the rest of the country, Colombia s Roman Catholic bishops were divided on their support of the deal, with some saying it was too lenient to the guerrillas. The pope is expected to urge them to put aside their differences during his trip on Sept. 6-10 and help the country move forward. The greatest task of the Church in Colombia now is to help stem the polarization around the peace process between the government and the guerrillas, said Archbishop Octavio Ruiz, a Vatican official and Colombian. This is a time for us to accept the grandeur of forgiveness, to leave behind us this dark period of war and blood. Hosffman Ospino, a Colombian who is professor of pastoral theology and religious education at Boston College s School of Theology and Ministry, said the country was ready to begin a new phase. The bishops of Colombia need to play a new role in the peace process so as to help create a political conscience, he told Reuters. I think the pope needs to encourage the Church to be an active player in those conversations, in the reconstruction of the social order. Reconciliation is the main theme of the trip and will be the emphasis for events on Friday in the city of Villavicencio, south of Bogota. There, in what is billed as the Great Prayer Meeting for National Reconciliation , the pope will listen to testimonials from people whose lives were affected by the violence and then deliver a homily. Burke, the Vatican spokesman, said those attending the prayer meeting would include victims of violence as well as former guerrillas who have been integrated into Colombian society for some time and are not part of the recent peace process with FARC. He said there would be no formal meeting with opposition politicians, FARC, or the National Liberation Army (ELN), the second-largest insurgent group, which began formal peace negotiations in February after more than three years of secret talks. The Marxist-led ELN, which was founded by radical Roman Catholic priests in 1964, has said it could declare a unilateral ceasefire during the trip to honor Pope Francis, whom they have praised for bringing attention to the world s poor and disenfranchised. The trip will have inter-related themes each day. Builders of Peace, Promotes of Life, in Bogota, Reconciliation with God, among Colombians and with Nature Villavicencio, The Christian Vocation and Apostolate in Medellin, and The Dignity of People and Human Rights in Cartagena.

"We've dropped from a top 10 state in elementary reading to 30th in the nation" under State Schools Superintendent Tony Evers’ watch.

MIAMI (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, whose buoyant position in opinion polls has been threatened by a surprising new twist in the saga over her emails, on Saturday harnessed some celebrity star power she hopes will help win the battleground state of Florida on Nov. 8. Musician and actor Jennifer Lopez headlined a free concert in Miami as part of a star-studded effort to get out the vote and energize volunteers. “We’re at a crossroads and we have to take the right road to the future,” Lopez shouted to screaming fans in rain gear who danced through rain and a shower of red, white and blue confetti. The concert provided some visual counter-programming to the latest email snafu to roil Clinton’s race to win the White House. The Federal Bureau of Investigation said on Friday it is investigating more emails as part of a probe into Clinton’s use of a private email system - a late-breaking surprise that will likely continue to get extensive media play leading up Election Day. Clinton’s campaign has said she is taking the news in stride, and on Saturday she lashed out at FBI Director James Comey over the review. The JLo event was the first of three high-profile concerts in states Clinton wants to keep from Republican rival Donald Trump, and it gave the former secretary of state a chance to connect with the key demographic of millennials she has sometimes struggled to reach. “If we turn out, we win,” Clinton told the crowd. Celebrity-driven events like the concert “can serve as a bit of a distraction” from the controversy, said Eric Kasper, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. “It is a way to kind of take the edge off things because it tends to be more positive,” Kasper said. Next week, Clinton will take the stage with Jay Z in Cleveland, and then with Katy Perry in Philadelphia on Nov. 5. A Harvard University poll this week showed that among likely voters aged 18 to 29, Clinton is leading Trump, a celebrity in his own right who starred in the reality television show “The Apprentice.” But turnout is a concern. The exceptionally negative tone of this year’s race for the White House has turned off young Americans, Reuters/Ipsos polling shows. Presidential candidates have long sought to create buzz with help from celebrity pals, said Tevi Troy, who chronicled the strategy in his book “What Jefferson Read, Ike Watched, and Obama Tweeted: 200 Years of Pop Culture in the White House.” “Campaigns do it to reach out to people who are not necessarily interested in politics but are interested in pop culture,” said Troy, a presidential historian who worked in the George W. Bush White House. The events are like a larger version of a campaign yard sign, a way to show a “groundswell” of support behind a candidate - and a way to appeal to fans of the musicians, Kasper said. “It can create a kind of psychological connection that we otherwise might not have when a politician endorses a presidential candidate, for instance,” Kasper said.

Tweet Widget by Tanya Golash-Boza How will Donald Trump’s rhetoric on removing what he calls “illegal aliens” be put into actual policy? One thing is certain: It will take a lot more than even a tripling of the current ICE force of 5,000 to surpass President Obama’s record-breaking deportations. “ICE would still rely on local law enforcement to do the bulk of arrests.” Congress would also have to revise existing immigration laws. Donald J. Trump’s 10 Point Plan to Put America First: A Response by Tanya Golash-Boza "It will be difficult for a Trump administration to exceed the 2011 levels and it will take time to rebuild this deportation machine." With the election of Donald J. Trump to the Presidency of the United States, many undocumented immigrants and their family members are concerned about their future in this country. How much worse will the United States get with a Trump Presidency? Although politicians do not always live up to their campaign promises, it is worth taking a look at Trump’s proposals to see how likely and/or feasible they are. 1. “Begin working on an impenetrable physical wall on the southern border, on day one. Mexico will pay for the wall. ” There is already a 700-mile wall along the border. Much of the remaining area where there is not a wall is impassable. Building more walls or fencing along the border will require Congressional appropriations. Congress may balk at the extraordinary cost, especially given the fact that border crossings are at a historic low . Whatever money ends up being spent will be a colossal waste of funds. 2. “End catch-and-release. Under a Trump administration, anyone who illegally crosses the border will be detained until they are removed out of our country.” Detention centers are currently at full capacity, both at the border and in the interior. Detaining more immigrants would require building more facilities or finding places to detain people. This is possible, but will be costly. Stock in the two major private prison companies (CCA and GEO group) shot up with the announcement of Trump’s win. These companies likely are willing to sell additional detention capacity to the Department of Homeland Security, but there are limits to how much capacity they can provide immediately. It is also possible for the Trump administration to use tent camps in the borderlands deserts to enhance capacity. If it were up to Trump alone, this is not inconceivable. It is incumbent upon us to ensure that the United States does not go back down that shameful route. 3. “Move criminal aliens out day one, in joint operations with local, state, and federal law enforcement. We will terminate the Obama administration’s deadly, non-enforcement policies that allow thousands of criminal aliens to freely roam our streets.” The Obama administration will have deported three million people by the time he leaves office, far more than any previous administration. Here, Trump is referring to the deportation of people with criminal convictions who live in the United States. These are called interior removals, and these reached a historic high in 2011, largely due to cooperation between local police and immigration law enforcement agencies. Returning to these high levels of interior removals would require cooperation with local law enforcement, who may not be on board. It will be difficult for a Trump administration to exceed the 2011 levels and it will take time to rebuild this deportation machine. 4. “End sanctuary cities.” Trump could threaten to take away federal funding from sanctuary cities, which would likely lead to massive protest. 5. “Immediately terminate President Obama’s two illegal executive amnesties. All immigration laws will be enforced - we will triple the number of ICE agents. Anyone who enters the U.S. illegally is subject to deportation. That is what it means to have laws and to have a country.” Trump can (and likely will) end the Deferred Action to Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which has provided employment permits and relief from deportation for undocumented youth. The most likely scenario is that the Trump administration will not renew these permits and they will gradually expire. There are currently about 5,000 ICE agents in the United States. Trump could triple that number to 15,000. That still would not be enough agents for ICE to engage in very many direct arrests, which require a lot of manpower. ICE would still rely on local law enforcement to do the bulk of arrests. 6. “Suspend the issuance of visas to any place where adequate screening cannot occur, until proven and effective vetting mechanisms can be put into place.” This is likely a plan to try and exclude people from certain national origins from entering the United States as all places where visas are issued have extensive screening. Trump likely could do this relatively easily. 7. “Ensure that other countries take their people back when we order them deported.” The countries he may be referring to here are Cuba, China, Vietnam, and Cambodia. These account for a relatively small number of deportees. 8. “Ensure that a biometric entry-exit visa tracking system is fully implemented at all land, air, and sea ports.” A biometric entry system is largely in place. A biometric exit system would be much more complicated and costly to implement. It’s not impossible, but would require a lot of Congressional appropriations. 9. “Turn off the jobs and benefits magnet. Many immigrants come to the U.S. illegally in search of jobs, even though federal law prohibits the employment of illegal immigrants.” Trump could expand e-verify , which is already in effect at many places of employment. DACA recipients who are employed may lose their jobs. This strategy would push undocumented immigrants to work under the table or to commit identity fraud. It would not make them leave. 10. “Reform legal immigration to serve the best interests of America and its workers, keeping immigration levels within historic norms.” It is up to Congress to pass laws regarding immigration flows. A Republican-controlled Congress could re-haul immigration policy to reduce the number of visas that we issue annually, or change the nature of those visas from family-based to skills-based visas. Immigration reform has been stalled in Congress for the entirety of the Obama administration. It is very unlikely that Trump will live up to his promise to deport all 11 million undocumented migrants. President Obama deported about three million people during his administration and it will be challenging for Trump to exceed those numbers. If Trump does exceed those numbers, he will do so by building on the massive deportation machine that President Obama has built. This effort will require a massive expansion in the number of ICE agents, the number of detention beds, and the number of immigration judges – an extremely costly endeavor. Tanya Golash-Boza is a Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Merced. Her most recent book is Deported: Immigrant Policing, Disposable Labor and Global Capitalism (New York University Press, 2015)

@docrose_rose @Ostrov_A Not just cheap. Desirable. And more valuable to them than living Jews.

@kim_tastiic @sweetirishf i'm slightly concerned that people clearly don't understand what 'racism' is

22 Things We Learned From Selena Gomez’s Twitter Q&A

Donald Trump has once again used images of non-American military in a campaign appeal. This time the former reality TV star used images of Communist soldiers in a web ad advertising his support of veteran s issues.The men were clearly Communists, as the detail on their medals read CCCP, the Russian initials for USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.Interesting choice for a photo of veterans in this @realDonaldTrump video: https://t.co/NdxdwpvMDD pic.twitter.com/PiagKGTP8H Josh Perry (@MrJoshPerry) January 22, 2016After he was called out for posting the Communist soldiers as Americans, the Trump campaign pulled the video. But here it is.The incident is not the first time Team Trump has tried to pass off foreign soldiers as Americans. In July, Trump tweeted out a photo of himself embedded on the American flag with a photo of soldiers. The problem is, that photo was a picture of German Nazi soldiers. As in the photo of the Communist soldiers, a cursory glance at the picture would have revealed the SS eagle logo on the side of their uniforms.As he often has done during the campaign, Trump blamed the photo on a young intern and pulled the picture.It was the same excuse he used on Friday when he re-posted a complimentary Twitter image from an account called White Genocide, who turned out to be a Trump supporter who also is a backer of the white supremacist movement.Trump s campaign is a cult of personality, built of toadies who appear to have risen in the ranks based on how much they suck up to the former reality TV star. Actual competence doesn t seem to matter at all. Even more damning, it doesn t seem to matter to Republican voters, who appear quite fine with giving their support to Trump, even as he can t show the basic respect that is due to members of the U.S. armed services.But then again, that seems to be the mindset of most of the Republican establishment, so perhaps it shouldn t be so surprising or jarring.Featured image via Flickr

MSM Polls Gaslighting US Voters with Manipulated Poll results Trump is Winning in Adjusted Average Tweet Recalculated Poll results adjusted for ACTUAL US party demographics. MSM (ABC, IBD, CNN) are weighting their polls against Trump by over-sampling democrats, and under-sampling Independents, who are leaning Trump by 6 pts. At the same time, they are slightly oversampling republicans for plausible deniability. However, republican over-sampling is MUCH lower than dem over-sampling, and adding the under-representation of Independent voters results in skewed polls that do not reflect the reality of Trump winning the election. It’s called gaslighting. A form of election fraud. The media is organized, evidenced by the similar weightings of the variousmsm polls, and fixing the

Nikki Haley, South Carolina s Republican governor, is hyperventilating with fear at the thought of the state Republican legislature sending her a brand new anti-transgender bathroom police law. The law would re-segregate our restrooms and force the state to impose restrictions on what bathrooms transgender individuals are allowed to use.The bill would require public restrooms to direct people to use the bathroom that aligns with their birth sex, and it would bar local governments from letting trans individuals choose which bathroom to use on their own.Let s pause for a moment and think about the first portion of that law. To enforce this law, you would need to staff public bathrooms with at least one security guard, who would require a birth certificate and visual inspection of the genitals of an individual before allowing them to use any restroom open to the public. That is literally the only way a law like this would actually be enforceable.This begs the question; what is the criminal penalty going to be for using the bathroom? Would it be a monetary fine, jail time or would it be a combination of both?Can you imagine the headlines? Local resident busted in bathroom sting by law enforcement, gets 6 months in jail for peeing.Despite Nikki s reluctance to sign this bill, the unfortunate part is that this isn t about new Republican support for transgendered individuals. There is no reason to think this has to do with anything other than money corporate money, to be exact. North Carolina is seeing the massive corporate fallout from the passage of their own anti-LGBT legislation. Big money is pulling out of North Carolina now, and Nikki Haley is terrified of the same thing happening in her state.Governor Haley tried to sound benevolent about it, suggesting that protecting religious freedom and our public bathrooms were not necessary: This is not a battle that we ve seen is needed in South Carolina. It s not something that we see that citizens are asking for. When we look at our situation, we re not hearing of anybody s religious liberties that are being violated, and we re again not hearing any citizens that are being violated in terms of freedoms. Like it or not, South Carolina is doing really well when it comes to respect and when it comes to kindness and when it comes to acceptance. For people to imply it s not, I beg to differ. Source: TPMIt s as if Nikki Haley forgot what party she belongs to. She actually is implying protections of religious freedom are not necessary. Republicans will hate her for this one.As usual, the Republicans pushing for the bill say it s all about public safety, with the implication being that adult sexual predators would enter women s restrooms to prey on people s young daughters.Here s a context in which to view this whole thing. Republicans want to pass an anti-LGBT law that restricts the rights of lawful citizens, because of the actions of potential criminals.When it comes to gun control, Republicans whine constantly about how wrong it is to restrict the rights of lawful citizens, because of the actions of potential criminals. They also say no laws ever stop criminals from doing bad things. It s good to know that the only time restricting rights and preventing crime can happen is when it comes to bathrooms, and not guns.The hypocritical pretzel-twisting that Republicans are having to put themselves into over this issue, and its associated negative consequences, would be hilarious if they were not trying to hurt people in the process. They have to answer to their corporate owners who hold the money bags, yet they also have to answer to their hateful bigoted voter base. It has to be increasingly embarrassing to be a part of their party.Featured image via YouTube screen capture

BERLIN (Reuters) - During Germany s election campaign, the Social Democrats (SPD) rallied behind French President Emmanuel Macron s ideas for reform of the euro zone, including the creation of a budget, finance minister and separate parliament for the currency bloc. But as momentum builds for another grand coalition between the SPD and Chancellor Angela Merkel s conservatives, doubts are rising about whether the center-left party will make European reform a top priority in looming negotiations. Several senior SPD officials, some speaking on condition of anonymity, said that while the party continued to support Macron s ideas, domestic reforms of health insurance, pensions and the labor market were likely to play a more prominent role in eventual talks. Europe is not a theme where we can simply push things through. We need to strive for a consensus, said Johannes Kahrs, a budget expert for the SPD in parliament and leader of the conservative Seeheimer Kreis wing of the party. It would be nice if the conservatives went along with the idea of a budget for the euro zone, but they need to want it. It would make no sense to try to bully them into this. The comments may come as a disappointment to Macron, who called SPD leader Martin Schulz after the collapse of three-way talks between Merkel s conservatives, the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) and Greens a week ago, and urged him to do his part to ensure political stability in Germany. The EU faces a narrow window to forge agreement on Macron s European reform proposals because, as 2019 approaches, it is expected to be consumed by the Brexit negotiations, wrangling over a new long-term budget for the bloc and EU elections. For that reason, the French president would prefer to avoid a lengthy period of political uncertainty in Germany, including new elections that could delay the formation of a government in Berlin until mid-2018. Macron also may be hoping the SPD led by former European Parliament president Schulz and Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel can convince Merkel s conservatives to embrace some of his more controversial ideas for the euro zone. Macron, a centrist, honed many of his European reform ideas with Gabriel when both were economy ministers. On page 98 of their election program, the SPD calls for many of the same measures that Macron supports: a euro zone budget, finance minister and parliament, as well as harmonized corporate tax rates and the transformation of Europe s ESM bailout mechanism into a more robust European Monetary Fund. Two months after the election, senior SPD officials say there is still broad support in the party for these ideas. But none suggest that the party is likely to insist on them in talks with Merkel that could begin next month. Several pointed to the departure of Merkel s hardline finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, who has shifted to the role of Bundestag president, as a significant step already. Before the election, a lot of people said we needed to get rid of Schaeuble. Now they ve done that for us, said one senior party member. Will we push for more on Europe? Yes. Will there be other priorities that are perhaps more important? Yes. Another SPD official said achieving a level playing field on corporate tax rates in Europe and introducing a financial transactions tax were just as important as Macron s plans to overhaul euro zone governance. While Merkel has shown a readiness to work with Macron, other members of her conservative bloc are skeptical about his euro zone ideas, fearful Europe could develop into a transfer union in which Germany pays for reform-wary southern countries. Over the past four years, the SPD struggled to put its mark on European policy, with Schaeuble, backed by Merkel, setting a strict rules-based course that emphasized structural reforms in euro member states over closer integration.

@wakanouka @TheOnlyCleoLuna oui ba tes photos reprennent la video la plus hardcore !

Nestle seeks more groundwater to expand Michigan plant They're putting profits over people - and the environment - yet again By Julie Fidler - November 9, 2016 The state of Michigan has given a preliminary go-ahead for food and beverage maker Nestle to nearly triple the amount of groundwater it will pump from beneath the state, to be bottled and sold at its Ice Mountain plant, approximately 120 miles from Flint. Nestle Waters North America asked the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to allow the company to increase pumping from 150 to 400 gallons-per-minute at 1 of its production wells north of Evart. The company already increased the well’s pumping rate last year and earlier this year, but needs the DEQ’s approval to max out the withdrawal capacity under the Section 17 of the Michigan Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). The DEQ already issued a draft proposal for the request in January, and ended a public comment period on the subject on November 3. Carrie Monosmith, environmental health chief in the drinking water office, said the DEQ hadn’t received any comments. Many Michigan residents feel Nestle has a lot of nerve asking for the increase, in light of Flint’s years-long nightmare over lead contamination in their drinking water. Many people in Flint still rely on bottled water for cooking, cleaning, and bathing as the government continues to drag its feet in replacing the corroded pipes. Nestle representatives defended the company’s efforts to pump more groundwater, saying the “U.S. market for bottled water in general is driving the bid for more Michigan groundwater.” That’s right, America. Nestle says it’s your fault. If that’s not infuriating enough, Nestle gets to pump that water for free. Under state law, private property owners may withdraw from the aquifer under their property for free. The only cost is $200 in annual paperwork. The interstate Great Lakes compact prohibits water diversions outside of the Great Lakes basin, but a loophole in the law allows water to be sold outside the region, so long as it is shipped in bottles smaller than 5.7 gallons. Jeff Ostahowski, vice president of the Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation (MCWC), asks: “The issue is the privatization of a critical resource. How much is too much?” For years, MCWC has battled against Nestle to prevent it from expanding in the state. According to Nestle and the DEQ, an environmental review shows the aquifer can withstand the proposed increase in pumping, and that it won’t hurt its flow, levels, or temperature of nearby surface waters.

@ACLU @aclu_mo thank for helping protect our rights, without @ACLU So much more would be swept under the rug. Accountability is key.

The "collective West" has instigated a hybrid war against Russia, containing three major elements: the first element is the economic warfare; the second - sustaining local and regional conflicts. The third, and most important element is information-psychological war - activities aimed at influencing the psychology of the adversary. The United States are carefully and methodologically preparing a social outburst, a "colour revolution" and a coup d'etat in Russia in 2021--2022, around the time of the next parliamentary elections in Russia.  

@KatMcKinley Ironically, the @Telegraph is censoring #CharlieHebdo cartoons right now.

“@elonjames: This isn't a war yet police are armed a and approaching like we're in Iraq. #Ferguson”

There is no one right way to be an activist. There is no one right way to change the world. There is no one right philosophy of leftist politics. There is no one right reaction to the election. There is no one right solution to the massive problems we're facing. That list is just for us, because this toxic "one right way" meme is burrowed deep into the left subconscious as much as the "one right way" meme has burrowed into the rest of our culture, and those we call our enemies. The left's version is far less destructive than the way it manifests in the right, but it is there nonetheless, causing all sorts of suffering among ourselves, and scaring away many who might join our cause. Very few people are aware that our entire culture is guided by this invisible cultural meme, but make no mistake - the idea that there is "one right way and my way is it" is perhaps the most deadly and toxic meme in our entire culture, and if we ever want to stop reproducing the systems of oppression we are fighting against, we must weed out this idea within ourselves. Fortunately, once you see it, you can't unsee it, so let me give just a handful of examples. In our, the dominant, culture (which began 10,000 years ago and grew to dominate the entire planet, save for the few indigenous societies which have managed to survive thousands of years of colonialism, assimilation, and destruction): There is one right economic system. There is one right religion. There is one right country. There is one right political party. There is one right sexual orientation. There is one superior gender. There is one superior race. There is one superior language. There is one superior form of civilization. All of these are subsets of the one meta-meme to rule them all: There is one right way to live, and our way is it. No doubt we can trace the vast majority of death, colonialization, conquest, war, genocide, discrimination and suffering in the entire history of our culture (which began roughly 10,000 years ago) to this belief in the "one right way." Capitalism, religious persecution, white supremacy, patriarchy - they are all symptoms of a dominating way of life that seeks to homogenize the great diversity of the world, creating a planet where one way of life reigns supreme. Trump and the authoritarian right, in the coming years, will be doing their best to force their way onto the rest of the world. We must resist this homogenization, but while we are doing it, we must not also do this to each other, on a smaller scale. The "one right way" meme is a killer, that much should be clear. If we strive to be more than the mirror reflection of those we are fighting against, let us agree to not bring the "one right way" meme into our own discussions, politics, and organizing. The antidote to a toxic, deadly meme is a more compelling and truthful meme, which is rooted in the natural laws of the universe. Daniel Quinn, to which I owe the inspiration for all of the above, said it best. That alternative meme is this: There is no one right way to live. There never has, and never will be. There are thousands of ways to live that work well for its members, and there are many ways that don't work (we've been trying one that doesn't work for 10,000 years, which has almost brought our species to extinction in the blink of a geological eye). Let's fight for a world where thousands of diverse ways of living and being can co-exist. This work is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License 0.0 ·

Hours before the third and final presidential debate, even Trump s own daughter is trying to distance herself from her father s failing campaign.During Fortune s The Most Powerful Women Summit, Ivanka Trump was asked about the role she has taken on as one of the most visible members of the inner circle of a Republican nominee who just in the last two weeks has body shamed a Miss Universe contestant and appeared in that [Access Hollywood] tape and suggested that other women that accused him were too unattractive [for him] to have assaulted. My brand was launched far before the presidential cycle commenced, Ivanka responded. And I ve always tried to maintain complete separation between that and the campaign. I hate the word surrogate, she added. Because what does that mean? When people talk about I m his confidante at one point, major newspapers were writing that I was a vice presidential candidate. I m saying, no, I m a daughter. She also said that except for childcare and women s rights, she keeps her views on policy to herself. She then reiterated that she does not consider herself to be a Republican. But I m not a surrogate, she insisted. I m a daughter. I stood in front of the [Republican National Convention] and shared that I m an independent, which is very consistent with many other millennials. But I do dismiss this idea of a surrogate because I don t think it appreciates the role that I m playing as my father s daughter I m not the campaign mastermind. You can watch Ivanka Trump s interview, here:<iframe width= 560 height= 315 src= https://www.youtube.com/embed/2Rr56ReOGYk frameborder= 0 allowfullscreen></iframe>Featured image via video screen capture

Kim Zolciak Biermann and Husband Kroy Channel Hugh Hefner & a Playboy Bunny in Sexy Halloween Costumes

Jay-Z dedicates ‘Numb/Encore’ performance to Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington

DeVry University, a school that offers courses online and at dozens of locations nationwide, has agreed to a $100 million settlement of a federal lawsuit alleging that it falsely advertised the success of its graduates, the Federal Trade Commission announced on Thursday. Under the settlement, DeVry and its parent company, DeVry Education Group, agreed to about $51 million in debt relief and an additional $49 million in cash to be paid to students harmed by the ads. Tens of thousands of students stand to benefit from the agreement, according to the F. T. C. “When people are making important decisions about their education and their future, they should not be misled by deceptive employment and earnings claims,” the commission’s chairwoman, Edith Ramirez, said in a statement. Under the terms of the agreement, DeVry neither admitted nor denied the allegations, though it rejected them in a previous filing. The settlement stems from a January lawsuit alleging that DeVry falsely claimed that 90 percent of students seeking jobs in their field of study found them within six months of graduating. The trade commission also accused the school of falsely stating that graduates with bachelor’s degrees from DeVry earned 15 percent more, on average, than those who attended other colleges and universities. The debt relief includes about $30 million to cover the balance owed on all private student loans DeVry issued to undergraduates over the course of seven years, from September 2008 to September 2015. It also includes about $20 million to forgive debt related to tuition, books and lab fees. Both the refunds, which the F. T. C. plans to begin sending next year, and the debt relief will be automatically processed. The commission said that it would identify students who qualify for the refunds, and that the school would notify them. DeVry will inform credit bureaus and collection agencies of the debt relief. The settlement also includes provisions designed to prevent the school from misleading consumers in the future.

Please share this everywhere! Especially to anyone considering voting for this nut job!

@iyad_elbaghdadi prove it with an authentic hadith if your truthful. the cartoonists reaped what they sowed that's my freedom of expression

CNN finally made it public that they have severed ties with DNC chair Donna Brazile after a new Wikileaks email revealed more CNN collusion with Clinton campaign after Donna Brazile gave Hillary Clinton a debate question in advance. They fired her 2 weeks ago when Megyn Kelly first confronted her regarding another leak at a town hall. CNN kept it quiet that they fired Donna Brazile all this time up until a new leak revealed she provided another question to Hillary Clinton in advance for one of their debates. CNN denied any involvement but the fact that they kept quiet for 2 weeks tells it all. The fact that this isn’t the first collusion we discover tells it all, besides, how would Donna get the questions? Someone from CNN had to gave her the questions. When FOX News’s Megyn Kelly previously confronted Donna Brazile she denied any involvement, claimed some mumbo jumbo about the Russians, space aliens, UFOs, tinfoil hats and she even said that the Wikileaks email is fake. Now after facing huge pressure even from Clinton News Network (CNN), Donna has finally admitted that the emails are real and that she’s at fault for the collusion. Brazile thanked CNN for her time on the network. Brazile tweeted this message around dinnertime Sunday night. Brazile gave Clinton’s senior advisers a heads-up on March 5 about a question she would be asked the next night during a debate against Bernie Sanders. Brazile was on defense earlier this month when this WikiLeak-ed email showed her giving the Clinton campaign a CNN town hall question about the death penalty ahead of time. UK’s The Independent reported : CNN has dropped a political commentator following accusations that she sent Hillary Clinton two questions ahead of time during the primary season. Donna Brazile announced her departure on 31 October on twitter although she resigned two weeks ago . Leaked emails from WikiLeaks belonging to Clinton campaign chair John Podesta showed that Ms Brazile funneled two questions to Ms Clinton, a longtime political ally, before a CNN-sponsored debate and voter town hall event against Vermont senator Bernie Sanders.

“@Independent: #JeSuisCharlie used across the world to show solidarity with #CharlieHebdo http://t.co/lKOoDVtevb http://t.co/az01qHQrkJ”

@Hawk_8319 @Swohtz @kris007brown the moves they can make are incredible

Following a month-long series of National Enquirer covers featuring President-elect Donald Trump, the Florida-based Publix grocery chain has directed stores to block the cover of the National Enquirer with white plastic covers to shield allegedly offensive content.The store made the move after receiving customer complaints.Photos taken at a Central Florida Publix on December 28 show the public being protected from viewing the National Enquirer cover featuring the Trump family. The Enquirer is placed by Publix between other tabloids that do not have censor shields blocking their covers.Trump s name and photo was featured on the front page of the Enquirer on issues dated November 28, December 5, 12, 19, 26 in 2016 and the most recent issue dated January 2, 2017 that featured the Trump family on the cover. The publication dates are generally about a week-and-a-half ahead of the actual date the issue is released for sale. GPThe cover-up by Public was first reported by WFTX-TV on December 21 after a tip by an outraged Trump supporter.Watch here:A Publix shopper turned to Four in Your Corner after seeing magazines with President-elect Donald Trump s picture being covered at the grocery store.He was shopping at the Publix on Del Prado Boulevard and Kismet Parkway in Cape Coral. I lift it up and there was a picture of Donald Trump, the President-elect. I was like Wow, really? I mean, what s next?' Walter Indyk said.The white screen covers are usually for magazines with inappropriate language or pictures. I was flabbergasted. I was amazed. I couldn t believe it, Indyk said. I was like This guy s going to be the President. They have the nerve to cover his picture up at the check out aisle?' I don t understand what is trying to be protected here, Rachael McDonnell of Cape Coral said. Whether everybody likes it or not, Trump is the President-elect. Indyk called the Manager, who he said told him they got a lot of complaints about having the magazine there, and it was a corporate-wide decision.Four in Your Corner reached out to Publix corporate office. A spokesperson said in a statement, in part: The National Enquirer receives the most customer complaints about front page content, so they were added to the list of magazines required to be covered, just last week. The National Enquirer has been sold at the checkout aisles of Publix for decades without being covered up until after Trump won the presidency on November 8 and was subsequently featured on the cover week after week.The Gateway Pundit s Florida Man Kristinn Taylor spoke with a Publix manager who acknowledged the controversy was instigated by complaining phone calls. The manager suggested Public could be pressured to reverse the decision by phone calls from those who disagree with the decision. Gateway Pundit

China on Friday urged all parties in Syria to try to find a political settlement in the six-year-old war after a U.S. military strike on a Syrian airfield, which came as China’s president met with U.S. President Donald Trump. China also hoped that “relevant parties stay calm, exercise restraint and avoid doing anything that might raise tensions”, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said. “The latest developments in Syria again speak to the urgent need for a political settlement to resolve the Syria issue,” Hua Chunying told reporters at a regular briefing. “We call on all relevant parties to resolutely stick to promoting a political settlement and not abandon efforts to find a political settlement.” U.S. officials said the military launched dozens of cruise missile strikes against an airbase controlled by Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s forces in response to the chemical attack on Tuesday in a rebel-held area. Facing his biggest foreign policy crisis since taking office in January, Trump took the toughest direct U.S. action yet in Syria’s civil war, raising the risk of confrontation with Russia and Iran, Assad’s two main military backers. China has routinely sided with Russia in blocking action by the U.N. Security Council on Syria, and Beijing’s special envoy for the Syrian crisis has praised Russia’s military role there as effective in combating international terrorism. While relying on the region for oil supplies, China tends to leave Middle Eastern diplomacy to the other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, namely the United States, Britain, France and Russia. But China has urged that a diplomatic resolution to the violence there be found and has hosted Syrian government and opposition figures. While showing no interest in getting involved militarily, China’s Defence Ministry said last year that it had been providing medical equipment and training for Syria. Beijing has its own security concerns about violence in the region, worried that Uighurs, a mostly Muslim people from western China’s Xinjiang region, have been fighting with militant groups in Syria and Iraq. A group purporting to be affiliated with the Islamic State issued a bloody video in late February, showing ethnic Uighur fighters training in Iraq, killing prisoners, and vowing to plant their flag in China.

John McCain was already walloped by Barack Obama in a presidential election, so it s only natural that the president would be at the center of what very well end McCain s political career entirely.The man responsible for bringing Sarah Palin into our lives isn t exactly known for his impulse-control, but it appears he massively overplayed his hand in his latest rush to bash President Obama. In the days after long-time Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia passed away, McCain became one of the de facto cheerleaders for the Senate Republican plan to spend the next year preventing Obama from fulfilling his constitutional obligation to nominate a replacement.He announced that he would be standing with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in opposing any nomination until after the election which means the seat would remain unfilled for nearly a year, and perhaps a great deal longer. For Republicans, this knee-jerk obstruction was so automatic that it seems almost nobody thought it through beforehand. So quick were they to oppose Obama, that they didn t stop to think about how it would look for the party already known for saying no to issue blanket opposition to a constitutional mandate.McCain, like many of his colleagues, is now discovering that his headlong rush into obstruction may be a career-ending blunder. A new poll conducted by Public Policy Polling found that his constituents in Arizona are fed up with his antics, and his already-low favorability numbers are tanking hard.As to McCain s position, 55 percent said it made them less likely to vote for his re-election this year; 21 percent said it made them more likely to vote for him; and 24 percent said it wouldn t make any difference.The poll, which had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points, also indicated that just 26 percent approve of McCain s job performance while 63 percent disapprove and 12 percent were unsure.In short: Nobody in Arizona seems to have any respect for John McCain. That s not a good position to be in, because McCain is facing a tough primary and an even tougher Democratic challenger in November. Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick is running for McCain s seat, and wasted no time calling out the senator: Members of the U.S. Senate have an obligation to uphold the Constitution and fulfill their duties, including voting on Supreme Court nominees regardless of party affiliation, Kirkpatrick told the press via a prepared statement. John McCain used to take that responsibility seriously. Care to hazard a guess what McCain s reaction to the poll was? Here s his campaign spokeswoman: This fake poll from liberal activists is the creation of partisan Democrat hacks who have tried and failed for years to defeat John McCain. Liberal bias, right on cue.At this point in his life, McCain isn t just fighting for his continued career in politics, he s fighting for his legacy. Rather than go out with a modicum of integrity, he decided to listen to the lemmings in his party that promised him that salvation was just beyond that edge of that cliff they were headed towards. It s painful to watch. Sadly, for politicians, you are only as good as the last thing you did. McCain will go out being remembered as a deeply unpopular senator who was so blinded by his hatred of Obama that it prevented him from accomplishing anything.Featured image via Gage Skidmore/Flickr