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@LaurieSkrivan Where are you guys? I want to help

impeachmentera evidence against bill clinton still sealed pages stored in locked guarded room published mins ago dailycaller tens of thousands of pages detailing the case for impeachment against former president bill clinton have remained locked away from the public for almost years although many believe that the report issued by then independent counsel ken starr revealed the final findings of his investigation of clinton in the late s around pages of documents seen by only a few people describe the house judiciary committees case against the nd president house judiciary committee chairman henry hyde hired chicago attorney and democrat david schippers to be the chief investigative counsel to help prosecute the committees case against clinton schippers described to american family radios sandy rios friday how the evidence against clinton was stored and studied by congress at the time

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, meeting Thursday night for their last debate before the New Hampshire primary, squared off fiercely on the question of whether the party should strive toward its liberal aspirations or set its sights on the achievable. The dynamic between the two contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination was far more intense — and far more personal — than it has been in their previous face-offs. That reflected how close their race has become in the wake of a virtual tie in Monday’s Iowa caucuses. The debate was sponsored by MSNBC and the New Hampshire Union Leader. [The Take: Clinton-Sanders battle boils over ] Clinton used her opening statement to needle the senator from Vermont, who describes himself as a democratic socialist, over what she has contended are unrealistically liberal plans for universal health care, free college and other programs. “I’m fighting for people who cannot wait for those changes, and I’m not making promises that I cannot keep,” the former secretary of state said. Sanders replied that a number of European countries had approved single-payer health-care systems. “I do not accept the belief that the United States of America cannot do that,” he said. As they had at a town hall forum the night before, the two remaining Democratic presidential contenders also squabbled over the modern definition of the word “progressive,” which has become the preferred term for the Democratic left. “A progressive is someone who makes progress,” Clinton said. [The Fix: Winners and losers from the fifth Democratic debate] Sanders, who enjoys enormous enthusiasm among the party’s liberal base, continued to make the argument that Clinton is too heavily dependent on those who have financed her campaign and made her personally wealthy. He said that he does “not only talk the talk, but walk the walk. I am very proud to be the only candidate up here that does not have a super PAC.” Clinton accused Sanders of engaging in a “very artful smear” of her character. She insisted she had never changed her position on any issue based on having received contributions from special interests. “Senator Sanders has said he wants to run a positive campaign. I’ve tried to keep my disagreements over issues, as it should be. But time and time again, by innuendo, by insinuation, there is this attack that he is putting forth,” Clinton said. Defending the paid speeches she gave in the period between leaving the State Department and announcing her presidential campaign, Clinton said she may not have done a good job of explaining what she was doing. “They wanted me to talk about the world” and how she saw threats and challenges, Clinton said of the groups that paid her fees of $200,000 and more. Asked whether she would release transcripts of closed-door, paid speeches, Clinton replied, “I will look into it.” The two contenders, voices raised, argued over whose plan and ideas would more effectively police Wall Street and the larger financial system. “Break them up!” Sanders thundered, referring to the nation’s biggest banks. Clinton said leading economists have judged her regulation proposals to be tougher. But Sanders kept bringing the argument back to her ties to Wall Street. Through the end of December, the financial industry had given at least $21.4 million to support Clinton’s 2016 presidential run — more than 10 percent of the $157.8 million amassed to back her bid, according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission filings by The Washington Post. Clinton also was asked whether she could guarantee that repercussions from her use of a private email system at the State Department would not “blow up” her campaign. She said she is “100 percent confident” that an FBI security review will come to naught. “I have absolutely no concerns about it,” she said. The Clinton team is expecting a loss in New Hampshire, the state that resurrected her 2008 campaign after a devastating third-place finish in Iowa. This time, she battled to the narrowest of wins in the Iowa caucuses. On Thursday, two new New Hampshire polls indicated that she has much ground to make up against Sanders before Tuesday’s primary. An NBC News-Wall Street Journal-Marist College survey had Clinton running 20 points behind Sanders in New Hampshire, 58 percent to 38 percent. A tracking poll by CNN-WMUR — the kind of daily gauge whose results are more volatile — showed an even wider margin, with Sanders beating Clinton by better than two to one, 61 percent to 30 percent. So it was no surprise that Clinton’s campaign was aggressively playing down expectations. At a breakfast Wednesday morning sponsored by Bloomberg Politics, Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook told reporters: “We face some pretty significant head winds here in New Hampshire. Senator Sanders has been leading here for some time, since the summer. It’s hard to underestimate the neighboring-state advantage in this race.” However resigned Clinton’s team may be to a loss here Tuesday, it thinks the electoral terrain will turn in her favor afterward, as the campaign moves to states with more diverse populations. The Sanders operation, however, has warned that they have been organizing in other states, including South Carolina and Nevada, and should not be underestimated. Sanders is also proving to be a fundraising powerhouse, reaping millions from small donors over the Internet, which means he has the capacity to continue his campaign for a long time. On Thursday, Clinton played up what she sees as her greater electablity in a general-election contest in November. “I’ve been vetted. There’s hardly anything you don’t know about me,” an asset in the “withering” scrutiny of the general election, Clinton said. Sanders brushed aside a question about his electability. He cited polls that suggest he would run stronger than Clinton against GOP front-runner Donald Trump in a number of battleground states. He also cited the enthusiasm that he is generating: “Democrats win when there is a large voter turnout, when people are excited, when working-class people, middle-class people, young people are engaged in the political process.” “I am the strongest candidate to take it to the Republicans and win in November,” Clinton said. Nonetheless, the rivals ended the debate on a note of solidarity. Clinton said that Sanders would be the first person she would consult if she won the nomination. Sanders added: “On our worst days, I think it’s fair to say, we are 100 times better than any Republican candidate for president.” Shortly before the debate, the Clinton campaign released un­official fundraising figures for January showing she brought in $15 million, which is $5 million less than Sanders received in the same period. Clinton’s team has been warning supporters of a Sanders donation surge and noting that he is already outspending her in television advertising in the early-voting states. The Clinton campaign also confirmed that she will break from campaigning in New Hampshire on Sunday to visit Flint, Mich., where a cost-saving decision led to dangerous levels of lead in the city water. The crisis in the economically depressed, heavily African American city has become a cause celebre among liberals, and Clinton has been in the forefront of criticism of the state’s Republican leadership for falling down on the job. She claims some credit for pressuring the governor to accept federal help. Her allies have used the Flint crisis as a point of comparison with Sanders, saying that his call for the governor to resign did nothing to help the city’s residents. The Flint issue and Clinton’s hastily scheduled trip also serve to divert attention from her falling fortunes in New Hampshire. Although she will campaign in New Hampshire for part of the day, her departure will be read as an attempt to change the subject from her tenuous position here.

@janetravers ... to be mutually respectful & non-insulting. Favouriting that tweet seemed like an insult.

PHOTOS: Americans across the country hold vigil for Michael Brown http://t.co/ARiaNz0b30 #NMOS14 #Ferguson http://t.co/l3mhbzJ139

Obama's budget plan would take national debt up to about 80 percent of gross national product. ... Historically, it's been about 40 percent.

WASHINGTON — Documents released by the F. B. I. on Friday revealed new details about the Justice Department’s yearlong investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server and whether she and her aides mishandled classified information. Among the documents was an summary of an interview F. B. I. agents conducted with Mrs. Clinton on July 2. Two days later, the F. B. I. director, James B. Comey, said the bureau had recommended to the Justice Department that neither Mrs. Clinton nor her aides should be charged with a crime. Here are six highlights from those documents: According to the F. B. I. in December 2014 a top aide to Mrs. Clinton told the company that housed her server to delete an archive of emails from her account. The company, Platte River Networks, apparently never followed those instructions. On March 2, 2015, The New York Times reported that Mrs. Clinton had exclusively used a personal email account when she was secretary of state. Two days later, the congressional committee investigating the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, and Mrs. Clinton’s response to them, told the technology firms associated with the email account that they had to retain “all relevant documents” related to its inquiry. Three weeks later, a Platte River employee realized he had not deleted the emails as instructed. The employee said he then used a special program called BleachBit to delete the files. The F. B. I. said Mrs. Clinton was unaware of the deletions. The F. B. I. said it was later able to find some of the emails, but did not say how many emails were deleted, or whether they were included in the 60, 000 emails that Mrs. Clinton said she sent and received while secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. But Mrs. Clinton’s lawyer, David Kendall, said in a letter to Congress on March 27, 2015, that after Mrs. Clinton gave roughly 30, 000 emails to the State Department, Mrs. Clinton “chose not to keep” her personal emails while she was secretary of state, which she has said numbered roughly 30, 000. Mr. Kendall said he confirmed with Mrs. Clinton’s support staff that no emails from the time she was in office “reside on the server or on any backup systems associated with the server. ” In Mrs. Clinton’s interview with the F. B. I. she said she did not recall receiving any emails “she thought should not be on an unclassified system. ” She said she had relied on State Department officials to use their judgment when emailing her sensitive information, adding that she “could not recall anyone raising concerns with her regarding the sensitivity of the information she received at her email address. ” In a summary of the investigation, the F. B. I. said Mrs. Clinton had emailed Colin L. Powell, a former secretary of state, a day after she was sworn into office about Mr. Powell’s use of a personal email account when he was the country’s top diplomat. Mr. Powell warned Mrs. Clinton that if she used her BlackBerry for official business, those emails could become “official record[s] and subject to the law. ” Mr. Powell, apparently implying that he was cautious in his use of his personal email account, added: “Be very careful. I got around it all by not saying much and not using systems that captured the data. ” According to a summary of her interview, Mrs. Clinton said she did not know exactly what Mr. Powell meant and that his message “did not factor into her decision to use a personal email account. ” Mrs. Clinton said in her interview it was “common knowledge” that she had a private email address because it was “displayed to anyone with whom she exchanged emails. ” But the F. B. I. said in a summary of its findings that “some State Department employees interviewed by the F. B. I. explained that emails by Clinton only contained the letter ‘H’ in the sender field and did not display her email address. ” The F. B. I. said that some of Mrs. Clinton’s closest aides were aware she used a private email address but did not know she had set up a private server. The aides said they were “unaware of the existence of the private server until after Clinton’s tenure at State or when it became public knowledge. ” According to the summary of the investigation, Mrs. Clinton brought her BlackBerry into a secure area on the seventh floor of the State Department, where such electronics are prohibited. The F. B. I. interviewed three former State Department diplomatic security agents who said that Mrs. Clinton kept her BlackBerry in her desk drawer in the secure area, a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIF. But Huma Abedin, a top aide to Mrs. Clinton, told the F. B. I. that Mrs. Clinton left the secure area to check her BlackBerry, often going to the State Department’s balcony to do so. The F. B. I. said that it had identified 13 mobile devices that Mrs. Clinton potentially used to send emails. Mrs. Clinton’s aides were in charge of buying replacement BlackBerry devices when she was in office. Ms. Abedin told the F. B. I. that “it was not uncommon for Clinton to use a new BlackBerry for a few days and then immediately switch it out for an older version with which she was more familiar. ” Ms. Abedin and another aide told the F. B. I. that “the whereabouts of Clinton’s devices would frequently become unknown once she transitioned to a new device. ” An aide to Bill Clinton, Justin Cooper, who helped set up the server, told the F. B. I. that he recalled “two instances where he destroyed Clinton’s old mobile devices by breaking them in half or hitting them with a hammer. ”

John Conyers might just drain the swamp for us. The 88-year old Democrat from Michigan who is accused of sexually harassing female staffers is now threatening to bring the swamp down by exposing all of the other members of the House and Senate accused of sexual harassment. Yes, the swamp is turning on itself. This could get really good In case you haven t heard $17 MILLION taxpayer dollars went to pay off people who accused politicians in the House and Senate of sexual harassment. That s YOUR money! Conyers paid $27K to one accuser He s got several more that have come out to say he also harassed them This guy is so bold with his harassment that he showed up to a meeting in his underwear. Yikes!CONYERS THREATENS TO EXPOSE OTHERS:Peter Hasson describes for the Daily Caller the remarkable vague threat emanating for the attorney representing John Conyers:The attorney for Democratic Michigan Rep. John Conyers, who is accused of continuously sexually harassing his female staffers, defended Conyers by indicating that there are allegations against many members of the House and Senate.Conyers attorney, Arnold E. Reed, released a statement defending the Michigan Democrat and pushing back against the disturbing allegations. The bizarre statement was written in all-CAPS and referred to both Reed and Conyers in the third person.https://twitter.com/Yamiche/status/933504768269606912ALL CAPS? Really? The lawyer should resign for using all caps!CHART OF PAYOUTS TO SETTLE HARASSMENT CHARGES:Congressional Office of Compliance releases year-by-year breakdown of harassment settlements and awards: pic.twitter.com/vxbezi22wb Reid Wilson (@PoliticsReid) November 16, 2017

Parents and teachers are already worrying about what they call the Trump Effect. They report that bullying and harassment are on the rise in our schools, especially targeting students of color, Muslimsand immigrants.

"Part of the increase in the cost (of higher education) has been because state support has dropped. We now spend, under Governor Walker, more on corrections than we do on higher education."

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s U.S. Supreme Court appointee Neil Gorsuch said on Friday that he does not share what he acknowledged was currently “a lot of cynicism about government and the rule of law.” Gorsuch, the newest member to the nation’s top court, spoke about the value of an independent judiciary during an evening event at Harvard University that also featured fellow Justice Stephen Breyer. Gorsuch reflected on how the “government can lose in its own courts and accept the judgement of those courts without an army to back it up.” He said 95 percent of all U.S. cases are resolved at the trial court level, with few reaching the appellate level or Supreme Court, a fact that he said indicated that litigants were satisfied that justice had been done. “I know a lot of cynicism about government and the rule of law, but I don’t share it,” he said. Gorsuch, whose confirmation to the lifetime job restored the court’s conservative majority following Justice Antonin Scalia’s death in February 2016, formally joined the Supreme Court on April 10. Gorsuch served on the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals before Trump nominated him in January. Trump was able to fill the vacancy after Senate Republicans last year refused to consider President Barack Obama’s nominee Merrick Garland. Breyer, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1994, and is a member of the liberal wing of the nine-member court, stressed during his comments the value of international values. “The values you are talking about are very widespread across the world,” he said. “Interest in democracy, human rights and so forth and rule of law.”

“@ryanjreilly: Crowd near site of shooting chants "hands up, don't shoot." #Ferguson http://t.co/utmeundmdQ”

@archon @draginol Free speech in the EU and US is very selective and thus not free at all --> https://t.co/L3XnCx5C0g

Share this with every offended snowflake in America clamoring for a safe space

The controversial history of France's "Charlie Hebdo" http://t.co/pzIz1L6X9k

On Friday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “O’Reilly Factor,” radio host Jamila Bey argued, “Milo has made millions of dollars on going and bringing violence and bringing terror to individuals he doesn’t like. ”[Bey said that it is “absolutely” the case that the First Amendment only protects freedom of assembly. She added, “[T]hese young students at Berkeley, who are among the smartest in the world put themselves on the line in defense of their fellow students. One of the highest things that we hope our people do in battle and they’re doing it already at school, to say we do not accept the violence that Milo … brings to the people he chooses to out, bringing out their names of people who — . ” When asked about the Berkeley praising the violence, Bey said the students are “young people, and I’m sure that they may even change their minds, but the arguments they made were sound. ” She later added, “Milo has made millions of dollars on going and bringing violence and bringing terror to individuals he doesn’t like. ” ( Grabien) Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett

Back on March 2’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Evelyn Farkas, deputy assistant secretary of defense under Obama, backed up a March 1 New York Times report revealing an effort to gather as much intelligence on Donald Trump and his campaign and transition team’s ties to Russia. “I was urging my former colleagues and, frankly speaking, the people on the Hill, it was more actually aimed at telling the Hill people, get as much information as you can, get as much intelligence as you can, before President Obama leaves the administration,” Farkas, now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said. “Because I had a fear that somehow that information would disappear with the senior people who left, so it would be hidden away in the bureaucracy … that the Trump folks — if they found out how we knew what we knew about their — the Trump staff dealing with Russians — that they would try to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we no longer have access to that intelligence. So I became very worried because not enough was coming out into the open and I knew that there was more. We have very good intelligence on Russia. So then I had talked to some of my former colleagues and I knew that they were trying to also help get information to the Hill. ” ( Fox News) Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor

“Non-essential people get to file for unemployment and make two to three times more than normal,” but essential workers still on the job get no pay raise.

A top Republican took to the Senate floor Thursday to blame fired FBI Director James B. Comey for fanning conspiracy theories about the U.S. election that played right into Russia s hands. Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican who, as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has oversight of the FBI, also accused Mr. Comey of working to shade the truth by agreeing to the Obama administration s attempt to soft-pedal the criminal probe of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.Despite rampant public speculation, Mr. Comey kept hidden the fact that the president wasn t under investigation allowing conspiracy theories and speculation to run wild, Mr. Grassley said.But Mr. Comey refused, saying later that he had feared saying something he d later have to correct. None of this fiasco had to happen if Mr. Comey had just been transparent with the public, as I urged him to, Mr. Grassley said. They played right into Russia s hands, he added.The senator s remarks were striking. A fiercely independent lawmaker, Mr. Grassley has used his office to probe both Democrats and Republicans.He s now in charge of one of the probes on Capitol Hill looking into Mr. Comey s firing and other aspects of the 2016 election brouhaha. We re going to go where the facts take us, Mr. Grassley said.He said Democrats ended up fostering the very Russian meddling in American democracy that they decried and he specifically fingered Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, saying the New York Democrat knew from Mr. Comey that Mr. Trump wasn t under investigation but told the public differently.Mr. Grassley said that as a member of the Gang of Eight the four high-ranking lawmakers in each party who get the most thorough intelligence briefing Mr. Schumer knew Mr. Trump wasn t being probed. But Mr. Schumer told the media that the president was under investigation. And, of course, that further helped feed media hysteria, Mr. Grassley said. The minority leader even tried to say the Senate shouldn t vote on the Supreme Court nomination because the president was under investigation. And the whole time he knew it wasn t true, Mr. Grassley said.He said Mr. Comey told him and Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the ranking Democrat on his committee, about Mr. Trump being in the clear in March.Watch Grassley expose Democrat lawmakers and their lies to the American public:That s the same time Mr. Schumer was demanding a vote on Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch be delayed, saying the president was under investigation. Washington Times

PESCARA DEL TRONTO, Italy — Mostly there was silence, virtually the only sound being that of a river flowing peacefully down the mountain that swallowed this tiny hamlet when an earthquake struck early Wednesday. On Thursday, some of the nearly 130 people who once lived here returned, accompanied by firefighters, to try to retrieve a few belongings and mementos of a life that was obliterated in a few violent seconds of shaking. “Where was your bedroom?” a young fireman asked a couple from under his yellow helmet. “It was where you see that white closet,” the woman answered, indicating a few shelves without doors hanging open, over the hill. The sidewall of their house collapsed down the slope, offering a glimpse of the intimacy of their lives. Italian officials now say that at least 267 people were killed in the mountain towns along the fault that erupted. But for the smallest of those places, like this one, the damage will be tallied not only in terms of the lost lives of family, friends and neighbors, but quite possibly the elimination of the towns themselves. Pescara del Tronto is gone. Perhaps five houses are left standing. And whether the place can ever be restored to the map seems an open question. The village is administratively part of the only slightly larger town of Arquata del Tronto, where 46 people are so far counted among the dead. For these largely isolated, hilltop towns in a rural region where the economy was already in decline, and where most of the permanent residents were already aging, the earthquake may be a coup de grâce, its own death knell. “It will be difficult for people to move back into Pescara del Tronto,” Michele Franchi, vice mayor of Arquata del Tronto, said, speaking from the camp near the main town, where half the tower pinnacles collapsed. “We should even wonder whether it’s wise to rebuild it right there, considering that it almost entirely came down. ” “But we need to move people out of tents quickly,” he added. “They need to see a chance for life here to restart, where possible. ” Of the 300 who were in the village when the quake struck, many were people who kept weekend houses to take a break from Rome, about 95 miles away. “I spent my life here,” said Enza, 52, an employee from Rome whose family home has been here for decades. “We are lucky because our house did not collapse. My mom, dad and brother left safely. But our entire lives are gone — so many friends, so many neighbors are no longer. How can we go back?” Enza was in no spirit to provide her full name. Residents do not feel like talking in Pescara del Tronto. The police and rescue officials escorted the few residents who had the courage to come back the day after the tragedy, in silence. Enza came back to recover her elderly parents’ medical devices and some clothes, so that they could feel somewhat less lost, she said. She was in Pescara del Tronto last weekend and went back to her work in Rome on Monday. Her brother took their parents safely into the street on Wednesday morning after the quake. The villages hit by the quake in the Marche region are along the ancient Roman road, the Via Salaria, that leads from Rome to the Adriatic Sea. Along this stretch of road, surrounded by green woods and high rocks, are now only cranes, tents and firefighters’ jeeps and trucks. Officers assigned to different points of the road discouraged travelers from taking it. Pescara del Tronto has been a summer or weekend destination, but many travelers were not strictly tourists. “This place was home to me and to so many others,” Enza said, breaking up in tears. “Not just the physical place — we all knew each other, so we all lost many, many members of our extended family. ” Enza said that, beyond the pain for lost friends and acquaintances, the worst part now was already the creeping nostalgia for a place that may have died with so many of its residents. “There used to be a stone step where we always sat down,” she said, pointing to a spot now buried under collapsed beams, roofs and stone bricks. “Our memories are completely erased. ” An ambulance passed by at full speed, sirens on, in the only narrow street leading into the town. Maybe one of her friends will become famous for being the last survivor taken out of the rubbles in Pescara del Tronto, Enza hoped. “You know, the worst is that this quake did not only take our future, but also took our past,” she said.

Donald Trump and his political campaign have become, over the last year, ground zero in America for anti-Semitic activity from white supremacists, neo-Nazis and others who hate Jews and ethnic minorities.The latest example comes from a Trump rally in Phoeniz, Arizona, where a man was caught on video yelling JEW-SA to reporters sitting in the cordoned off section of Trump s rally.Guy chants "Jew-S-A" in front of press pen pic.twitter.com/2yqgA6dD4k Nick Corasaniti (@NYTnickc) October 29, 2016The video was recorded by Nick Corasantini who is covering the Trump campaign for the New York Times.Trump s campaign has been embraced and supported by the so-called alt-right, a rebranding of white nationalists who seek to remove the influence of anyone who isn t a white Christian from America. The alt-right regularly promotes Nazi memes online and off, and has repeatedly abused reporters and commentators who are Jewish with death threats, online attacks, and more.Instead of rejecting these people, Trump s campaign has supported them. Trump has re-posted their messages through retweets on his Twitter account, while he has also given them official credentials to cover his campaign and to report from the floor of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.Additionally, Trump s son Donald Jr. gave an interview to a white supremacist radio show, where he and the host lamented political correctness. Trump s policies have been lauded by white supremacists, specially his anti-Muslim policies, especially his proposal to ban immigration to the United States by Muslims.Former KKK member and leader David Duke has endorsed Trump, and said he was inspired by the support for Trump and decided to run for the U.S. Senate from Louisiana. Duke has attracted enough support within the Republican Party there to qualify for an invitation to a Senate debate, which is being held at a historically black university.In a CNN interview, Trump refused to directly rebuke or renounce Duke s support, choosing to do so only after he was on TV. Many white supremacists took this as a sign of support from Trump for their movement.Featured image via screen capture

Donald Trump just got caught lying on Twitter again and got totally humiliated with his own tweets.The world is still reeling after Trump signed an executive order banning travelers from entering the United States from seven different countries that he considers a threat to American safety.Trump has been touting his Muslim ban as one of his greatest achievements even though it is totally unconstitutional.Pretty much everyone understands that his order is a ban.But on Wednesday morning, Trump actually tried to claim that his order may not be a ban at all by claiming that everyone is arguing about whether or not it s a ban. He also claimed that the purpose of the ban is to keep bad people out of the country as if bad people only come from those nations.Everybody is arguing whether or not it is a BAN. Call it what you want, it is about keeping bad people (with bad intentions) out of country! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 1, 2017Twitter users were not amused, and they ripped Trump tweet to shreds.@realDonaldTrump makes sense you d kick off Black History Month with a lie, since racist lies is how you started your Presidential campaign. Alex Zalben (@azalben) February 1, 2017@realDonaldTrump hey, remember this bad five year old? What bad intentions! https://t.co/fLrIr6mc44 Alex Zalben (@azalben) February 1, 2017@realDonaldTrump oh man, look at these bad, wheelchair bound ladies: https://t.co/NrG1DSRdWr Alex Zalben (@azalben) February 1, 2017@realDonaldTrump here s a clearly bad person with bad intentions, who you actually killed https://t.co/5fjaFKcaVM Alex Zalben (@azalben) February 1, 2017@realDonaldTrump you re lying. You ve always been lying. You ve lied so much, you don t know what the truth is. And now it s costing lives. Alex Zalben (@azalben) February 1, 2017.@realDonaldTrump Women and children who are seeking safety have bad intentions ? Jordan Uhl (@JordanUhl) February 1, 2017.@realDonaldTrump & you called it a ban, so maybe that set a precedent: pic.twitter.com/lRYDFTCl3Q Jordan Uhl (@JordanUhl) February 1, 2017@realDonaldTrump an entire nation isn t Bad let alone 7 of them. pic.twitter.com/5hJBTcIyTt AJ Joshi (@AJ) February 1, 2017@realDonaldTrump Nobody is arguing you called it a ban yourself.https://t.co/bFEtgpDtE2 Erick Fernandez (@ErickFernandez) February 1, 2017@realDonaldTrump once again here https://t.co/PzyacqxVkC Erick Fernandez (@ErickFernandez) February 1, 2017@realDonaldTrump also here https://t.co/hOykNiMgMy Erick Fernandez (@ErickFernandez) February 1, 2017@realDonaldTrump Hang on, you said it was a ban, then Spicer said several times it wasn t, and now you re admitting it can be. Embarrassing. Mike P Williams (@Mike_P_Williams) February 1, 2017@realDonaldTrump Like families, Olympic athletes and Oscar nominees? Blanket generalizations like this are ridiculous and discriminatory. Tommy Campbell (@MrTommyCampbell) February 1, 2017Featured image via Andrew Harrer-Pool/Getty Images

On Tim Kaine: In exchange for campaign contributions, he appointed a radical jihadi to the Virginia Immigration Commission.

The US is preparing a Maidan in the Republic of Moldova. Many media institutions have cited a note from the US Embassy in Moldova warning American citizens to avoid demonstrations that might take place after the February 24th parliamentary elections, "as in the past, large public demonstrations are possible". Post-election events in Moldova may be similar to those that occurred in Kyiv in 2013-14 or those taking place now in Venezuela. References are made to the statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry on US involvement in the Moldovan elections.  

Miss him yet?Here s an up-close look at a quality-of-life offense the City Council wants to decriminalize.This urinating vagrant turned a busy stretch of Broadway into his own private bathroom yesterday an offense that would result in a mere summons if Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and her pals get their way.Wrapped in rags and a Mets blanket the hobo wandered into traffic at around 10:30 a.m. and relieved himself as cabs, cars and buses whizzed by between West 83rd and 84th streets on the Upper West Side.He finished his business at a nearby garbage bin, then strolled back to the front of a Victoria s Secret store at Broadway and 85th Street, where he camped out for the rest of the day.Mark-Viverito in April announced plans to decriminalize public urination along with five other low-level offenses: biking on the sidewalk, public consumption of alcohol, being in a park after dark, failure to obey a park sign and jumping subway turnstiles. Police Commissioner Bill Bratton who in the early 90s implemented a broken windows approach to policing to dramatically cut crime is against the new plan, saying such offenses lead to more serious crimes.Bill Caprese, 38, who lives on 82nd Street with his 6-year-old daughter, was appalled by the street urinator. It s absolutely a failure of government. It s a total abject failure, he said. The mayor could fix it. The governor could fix it. We need asylums. Unfortunately for NYC, radical socialist Mayor DeBlasio turned his back on the NYPD, whose job it is to control the crime. An employee at the Victoria s Secret, where the homeless man often lounges, said he drives away business. He curses people out, threatens lives, said the employee, who works in the lingerie chain s loss-prevention department. Customers complain about him all the time. And the growing problem isn t solely on city streets. Transit hubs, including Penn Station, are plagued by surging numbers of homeless people who publicly masturbate, harass bystanders and demand free food as the city looks the other way, commuters complain. It reminds me of the pre-[Rudy] Giuliani era, said Jim Hoover, 60, who has been commuting through Penn Station since 1986. The police aren t chasing them away anymore. Just outside the Port Authority Bus Terminal, a homeless man drunkenly knocked a woman to the floor while stumbling around the sidewalk.The bum, who goes by Monk, was arrested by a cop at the scene and taken away by an FDNY ambulance. He s going to get a hospital bed and a slap on the wrist, said Timothy Arroyo, who was watching from a crowd that gathered. He ll be back out here tomorrow. A PA source said there has been a noticeable uptick in vagrants at the terminal in recent months.Via: NYP

Islamic State jihadis fighting to establish a caliphate in Marawi, the Philippines’ only “Islamic city,” released a video this week showing the complete destruction of the city’s St. Mary’s Cathedral. [Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists affiliated with the local jihadi outfits, Maute group and Abu Sayyaf, overran the city in May, taking Christians hostage, killing anyone who could not recite Quranic verses, and flying the Islamic State flag over the city’s mosques. President Rodrigo Duterte imposed a martial law period over the entire island of Mindanao, where Marawi is located, and has launched an airstrike offensive against the terrorists. Philippine authorities believe that many of those fighting in Marawi are not indigenous jihadis but foreigners who have traveled to the Philippines to help establish an ISIS caliphate there. ISIS’s Amaq News Agency has helped bolster this belief by releasing two propaganda videos from Marawi. The latest, released this week, shows ISIS jihadis within St. Mary’s Cathedral. Shot in a style similar to videos that showed the destruction of the Mosul Museum in Iraq, the terrorists tore down all the statues within the Roman Catholic church, breaking them apart with hammers and stomping on them. They took down the large cross that adorns the church, as well as trampling the baby Jesus and tearing apart a photo of Pope Benedict XVI. The terrorists then set the building on fire: “That is blasphemy! It’s unacceptable. It’s obvious that their actions are really out of this world. It’s demonic,” Bishop Edwin de la Peña of Marawi said in an article posted on the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, according to the Philippine Inquirer. “We are angered by what happened. Our faith has really been trampled on. ” De la Peña had previously confirmed the abduction of Vicar General Father Teresito Soganub, along with a number of other church officials and believers in the church at the time. “It happened in fact on the eve of Mary’s feast: we ask her for help” because “only she can come to our aid,” de la Pena said in a statement. “We also make an appeal to Pope Francis to pray for us and to ask the terrorists to release the hostages, in the name of our common humanity. ” The terrorists featured Soganub in a video released last week, in which the priest stands before a pile of rubble and implores Duterte to cease the airstrike campaign against ISIS or they will kill all the hostages. Following the release of that video, Amaq published another short film showing terrorists fighting on the streets of Marawi, greeting each other with “Allahu akbar. ” The Inquirer notes that some of those seen in the latest video appear to be teens and young adults, fitting the profiles of the terrorists that eyewitnesses have provided the media. Philippine police and military officers tell reporters their intelligence suggests that they have no plans of fleeing and have stockpiled weapons and food in the city, expecting an extended battle. “There are underground tunnels and basements that even a (bomb) cannot destroy,” Maj. Gen. Carlito Galvez, head of the military command in Western Mindanao, told the BBC. While the struggle to liberate the city of its ISIS presence continues, police announced one major breakthrough on Tuesday: the arrest of senior leaders of the Maute group who had attempted to flee to Davao, the Mindanao city where President Rodrigo Duterte governed as mayor for 22 years and continues to call home. Among those arrested was Cayamora Maute, the father of the Maute brothers who gave the terrorist group its name. Duterte is now offering a five million peso ($101, 040. 75) reward for each of the Maute brothers, Abdullah and Omar, the leaders of the local terrorist group. The government is also offering twice that for the capture of Isnilon Hapilon, the head of Abu Sayyaf. The United States has also placed a $5 million bounty on Hapilon. Both Maute and Abu Sayyaf have pledged allegiance to ISIS caliph Abu Bakr and appear to be working together in Marawi. One Islamist group that has not joined forces with the ISIS affiliates, however, is the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and its affiliate, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF). Both are Muslim separatist groups that have supported Duterte since his presidential candidacy was announced, largely due to his regard for Muslims in the nation’s south. The MNLF has offered to fight alongside the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) against ISIS. The MILF has called for the release of Father Soganub, citing his efforts to foster interfaith trust.

@FathImraNazeer I never said anything bad to them and never would. @CEMB_forum

Hayley Romer, the Senior Vice President at The Atlantic, spoke about the issue of fake news in a speech entitled “The Importance of Questioning Answers” at the Dublin Tech Summit this week. [“I’m not sure if this is something that was hardwired into me since birth,” Romer began, “or it’s something that I’ve grown overly accustomed to since joining The Atlantic five years ago, but regardless I definitely describe myself as somebody who relentlessly questions answers. And I think I do that for a couple of reasons. First of all, for me, it’s the only way to really make sense of things, but the other reason is because it’s the only way to get to the truth, right?” “Thinking about coming here today, I felt like this notion of something that’s absolutely transcending our society in so many ways, and I thought this would be a great place to talk about how we got there and why we need to now, more than ever, be questioning our answers. ” Romer discussed the perils of only viewing information that validates your current worldview and the issues that arise when living in a bubble, whether it be related to politics, news, or social issues. “Let’s say for a second I understood what your political views were and I were to only send you things that validate that view, or I say, ‘I understand that you believe in this, I’m just gonna keep sending you things that validate your opinion.’ Is that a good thing? I’m not sure,” she said. “I think that assumption is one that sort of lies on the edge of something worth debating, hence the nature of this conversations. Let’s take a step back and look at the news. It used to be that every night in order to get the news, you had one trusted voice come into your home. You’d turn on your TV, you’d sit down at the end of the day, and somebody would show up and tell you everything that you needed to know, and you believed what they said. ” “Once cable news came around, you had choices, you had more ways to gain access to information, you didn’t necessarily have to listen to things so broadly, and you had the opportunity at that point through cable news to gain access to different opinions, different perspectives, different sets of news information, if you will,” she continued. “But then came the Internet where everyone had a voice, and the thing about the Internet was that it was going to be the total democratization of all humanity,” Romer stated. “We would create a global free open exchange of ideas. Everyone had access to everything, and this was going to be the ultimate dream because you no longer had to wait for someone to come into your home at a certain time of day. ” “But reality, as we know, is much more complicated than that,” she said. “Everyone flocked to the Internet a lot faster than we could have predicted, which left us saying, ‘What do we do now, how do we figure this out?’ Pretty soon we were overwhelmed with information of course. ” Romer discussed the competition between content providers to produce valuable content and attract a new and massively growing marketplace of users. This lead to a new industry of content and advertising, encouraging competition between websites to attract more users and deliver more ads, increasing revenue. The Internet, according to Romey, allowed content developers to understand what their audience wanted to hear and see and provide that to them, encouraging them to return to their website.

Queer Eye’s Karamo Brown Engaged to Ian Jordan

Panama Papers are George Soros's campaign against Putin for banning Soros's NGOs that were planning Russian Maidan.

Email This Week in the News You wouldn’t know it by watching the news, but there are actually important things going on in the world that have nothing to do with the Presidential election. Today, we’ll talk about some of these non-election-related events on Survival Saturday, like the Dakota access pipeline, Russia, Venezuela, and our dystopian future. For election coverage, go on over to my other website, DaisyLuther.com , which is all Hillary, all the time, right up until the election. (My goal there is to cover the stuff that the MSM is trying to sweep under the rug about their darling.) The Dakota Access Pipeline Protesters Are Being Brutally Attacked by Law Enforcement Have you been aware of the ongoing protests by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe about a pipeline being forcibly built across their watershed via eminent domain? They have been joined by other tribes to form a coalition of water protectors who say that the pipeline is a violation of a treaty established between the Sioux and the federal government. ( Here are the important things to know about the protest . Trust me, you’ll want to read this.) Everyone who was paying attention breathed a sigh of relief when the US Government for once took a stand on behalf of the little guys back in September. “The federal government ordered a halt to work on a $3.8 billion four-state oil pipeline in the Upper Midwest on Friday, handing a temporary victory to the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and other opponents of the project… …The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it wouldn’t authorize construction near Lake Oahe, a culturally important location to the tribe, until the agency determines if it needs to reconsider its previous approvals under the National Environmental Policy Act.” ( source ) Unfortunately, the government’s willingness to do the right thing was short-lived. Work has resumed on the pipeline and all hell is breaking loose – but not by who you might think. Protestors have been non-violent, but law enforcement has been absolutely brutal. They’ve beaten up on young people, old people, and independent journalists covering the story. Hundreds have been arrested. These people are protecting their water sources and their way of life, and they are being brutalized by our own government. The story you’re getting on the mainstream is that the water protectors are standing there and that the police are standing there and that it is a relatively calm affair. That couldn’t be further from the truth. The AntiMedia (who would get a major journalism award if real journalists got such awards) has provided truthful coverage, and it is ugly. Every single person who is against government overreach should be supporting the water protectors. Right now, this affects some people up in North Dakota. But what about when someone wants to build something across your land? What about when someone wants to seize your home? What about when Agenda 21 comes to your back yard? Here’s what really happened at the Dakota Access Pipeline protests . It’s on film. It’s ugly. You owe it to your fellow human beings to witness this and be outraged. Go here to learn what you can do to help . With all of this “progress,” is humanity at risk of becoming obsolete? Thousands of jobs each year are being turned over to computers as humans demand higher wages and better benefits for unskilled labor. We’ve all ended up on the endless loop of talking to customer service robots on the phone or going to a checkout counter and discovering it is push button and digital. Is this all part of a greater plan to make the bulk of humanity utterly dependent on the whims of a few? I don’t watch a lot of documentaries, but last night my daughter and I watched Obsolete . This film is available for free on Amazon , and it isn’t one of those dry, boring ones that keep you shifting in your seat in order to stay awake. It’s fascinating from the moment you hit play. When it was over, we sat there in silence for at least a minute, aghast that we could see the whole thing happening around us right now. I can’t recommend this highly enough. Everyone should watch it. Let me quote Morpheus (from the Matrix ) for a moment here. “This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill—you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Remember: all I’m offering is the truth. Nothing more.” This documentary is the red pill. Take it if you want to survive the future that is coming for us all. Watch Obsolete then come back over here and let’s talk about it. I think this will spark a very interesting conversation. How will you prepare for a future in which humanity is largely obsolete? Meanwhile in Venezuela… Things are still awful there, although there hasn’t been as much news coverage. Basically, this is how life is now for Venezuelans, and recovering from this collapse could take decades. Currently, the people of the country are revolting against the unpopular president, Nicholas Maduro. A campaign had begun for a recall election in order to replace Maduro, but authorities halted the process. The electoral council cited fraud when faced with huge numbers of signatures on a petition. Thousands of demonstrators filled the streets. Source: Federico Parra /AFP/Getty Images NPR reports : The demonstrators were protesting “what they call a sharp turn towards authoritarianism. The Maduro government has jailed opposition leaders, stripped Congress of its powers and cracked down on the press.” As for Maduro, he has blatantly threatened to jail anyone who tries to remove him from power, via elections or legal means, ironically citing the Venezuelan constitution : “If they launch a supposed political trial, which is not in our constitution, the state prosecution service must bring legal action in the courts and put in jail anyone who violates the constitution, even if they are members of Congress.” What’s more, in a conversation with the American DEA, Maduro’s nephew says that Venezuela is at war with the US, which is news to most Americans. Efrain Campo was busted doing a quick cocaine deal in order to make money for the Venezuelan First Family. He was caught attempting to smuggle $5 million of Columbian cocaine into the US. The Charlotte Observer reported : Efrain Campo…was recorded saying “we’re at war” with the Americans and laughing about sending opposition leaders to jail, according to the transcript, which was filed in federal district court in New York. “We need the money,” Campo said, according to the transcript. “Why? Because the Americans are hitting us hard with money. Do you understand? The opposition . . . is getting an infusion of a lot of money.” …The defense has sought to paint Campo and his cousin as victims of a U.S. political plot against the Venezuelan government and has asserted that they didn’t have the knowledge or capability to pull off such a complicated transaction. We’re irritating the snot out of Russia… Lately, the Powers That Shouldn’t Be (great phrase borrowed from my friend Mel at Truthstream Media ) have been going out of their way to paint Russia and Vladimir Putin as the biggest threat to America. A bigger threat, even, than Hillary Clinton, and boy, that’s a stretch. I’m pretty sure you can put all of these recent headlines together and get a picture of where this is headed. ( Hint .) There are many more, but I don’t want this post to be a lengthy novel about idiocy.

For the past 18 months, pregnant women have lived in fear as Zika, a virus they had never heard of, spread throughout much of the world leaving behind thousands of babies born with underdeveloped brains and other birth defects. Medical researchers are aggressively trying to develop a vaccine or treatment that is effective in stopping the virus or protecting fetuses in wombs if their mother gets Zika. The good news announced this week is that scientists have had encouraging results. Clinical Trials of a Vaccine The first of five clinical trials in humans to test the safety and effectiveness of a Zika vaccine began, according to a National Institutes of Health (NIH) announcement Monday. Called the Zika Purified Inactivated Virus (ZPIV), the vaccine was developed using inactivated virus particles. The basic shell of the particles is intact to the particles evoke a response from the recipient’s immune system creating more antibodies. This technology and approach was successfully used in developing a vaccine for Japanese encephalitis. The NIH trial involves 75 people between the ages of 18 and 49 who have not had any sort of flavivirus. (Zika is a flavivirus. So are dengue, Japanese encephalitis and West Nile.) Participants will be randomly split into three groups. The first will receive two injections of either the test vaccine or a placebo 28 days apart. The other two groups will get the Japanese encephalitis vaccine or a yellow fever vaccine prior to receiving the two-dose ZPIV vaccine. A subgroup of 30 participants will receive the two-dose a third dose of the vaccine being tested a year later. The NIH announced that four other trials involving the ZPIV investigational vaccine within months. These vaccine studies are being fast-tracked, but it will take a few years to know the results. Antibody Tests While the NIH research deals with a vaccine against the virus, other research has been under way to protect fetuses from the virus. An antibody that prevents a fetus from becoming infected with the virus has been identified and tested in mice. It also prevents damage to the placenta. Lastly, the antibody appears to provide protection against the virus for adult mice. The research conducted by teams from the medical schools at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., and Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., was published Monday in “Nature.” The research study in mice may not translate directly to humans. However, it suggests that scientists are on the right track studying antibodies from former Zika patients as a solution. The researchers actually screened 29 anti-Zika antibodies they gathered from people who recovered from the disease. One of them efficiently counteracted the five strains of the virus circulating worldwide in the lab tests. The antibodies identified “represent the first medical intervention that prevents Zika infection and damage to fetuses,” according to co-author James Crowe Jr., MD, of Vanderbilt. To test the antibody in live animals, the scientists gave it to pregnant mice either the day before or after being infected with Zika. In both instances, the antibodies successfully reduced the virus levels in the pregnant mice and their fetuses. They compared the results with those of pregnant mice infected with the disease but not given the antibody. The placentas seemed normal in the mice treated with the antibody, showing they were protected from the disease. In the untreated virus-infected mice, however, there was noticeable placental damage. “The anti-Zika antibodies are able to keep the fetus safe from harm by blocking the virus from crossing the placenta,” noted co-author Indira Mysorekar, PhD, a Washington University associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology. Written and Edited by Dyanne Weiss Sources: Nature: Neutralizing human antibodies prevent Zika virus replication and fetal disease in mice Washington University School of Medicine: Antibody protects developing fetus from Zika virus, mouse study shows National Institutes of Health: Testing of Investigational inactivated Zika vaccine in humans begins TIME: Zika Vaccines Are Growing More Promising Photo courtesy of NIH: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases – Creative Commons license microcephaly , Vaccine , Zika

Donald Trump has already been giving hints that he might back out of debating Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton over claims that the political system is rigged against him even though we all know it s really because he s terrified of her. While most of us think Trump s attempts to blame outside forces for his incompetence are pathetic, some of his most prominent minions are coming to his rescue to further spread his conspiracy theories.Roger Stone, one of Trump s closest confidantes, spoke to Breitbart bigot Milo Yiannopoulos recently and warned that there would be a bloodbath if Trump didn t win the election. After several recent polls have suggested that Clinton is pulling ahead of Trump, Stone was more than happy to declare voter fraud. Stone said: I think we have widespread voter fraud, but the first thing that Trump needs to do is begin talking about it constantly. If there s voter fraud, this election will be illegitimate, the election of the winner will be illegitimate, we will have a constitutional crisis, widespread civil disobedience, and the government will no longer be the government. Of course, Yiannopoulos was right on board with this theory and the men had some horrific advice for Trump continue to be as offensive as possible and push those buttons so that he can gain enough rabid support from racists and bigots to make up for any supposed rigging that might happen. Stone also suggested that Trump should vow to shut the government down if Clinton was elected in November. As if this interview couldn t get any crazier, delusional Stone issued this warning: If you can t have an honest election, nothing else counts. I think he s gotta put them on notice that their inauguration will be a rhetorical, and when I mean civil disobedience, not violence, but it will be a bloodbath We will not stand for it. Trump s allies are just like him they love to encourage violence and are incapable of acting like adults when things don t go their way. The amount of stupidity going on in this interview is unfathomable. You can listen to it below:Previously, Roger Stone had encouraged Trump supporters to go stalk and visit anti-Trump delegates in their hotel rooms if they tried to take the GOP nomination away from Trump.Featured image via Alex Wong / Getty Images

Nearly 15 years after the United States adopted a program to interrogate terrorism suspects using techniques now widely considered to be torture, no one involved in helping craft it has been held legally accountable. Even as President Obama acknowledged that the United States “tortured some folks,” his administration declined to prosecute any government officials. But now, one lawsuit has gone further than any other in American courts to fix blame. The suit, filed in October 2015 in Federal District Court in Spokane, Wash. by two former detainees in C. I. A. secret prisons and the representative of a third who died in custody, centers on two contractors, psychologists who were hired by the agency to help devise and run the program. One of them, James E. Mitchell, has written a book to be released Tuesday about his involvement in the program. In the book, he argues that he acted with government permission and that he and Bruce Jessen, the other psychologist and his in the lawsuit, received medals from the C. I. A. Legal experts say the incoming administration of Donald J. Trump could force the case’s dismissal on national security grounds. Deciding whether to invoke the state secrets privilege over evidence requested in the lawsuit could represent the new president’s first chance to weigh in on the issue of torture. Mr. Trump has endorsed the effectiveness of torture and said he would bring back waterboarding, though it is not clear now that he intends to do so. Lawyers for Dr. Mitchell and Dr. Jessen have clashed with the Justice Department over what classified evidence is needed to defend against the suit’s allegations that the men “designed, implemented, and personally administered an experimental torture program. ” Last month, despite United States government opposition, the court approved the defendants’ request for oral depositions of John Rizzo, a former C. I. A. acting general counsel, and José Rodriguez, the former chief of the agency’s clandestine spy service who also headed the C. I. A. ’s Counterterrorism Center. Dr. Mitchell was first publicly identified as one of the architects of the C. I. A. ’s “enhanced interrogation” program nearly a decade ago, and has given some news media interviews, but is now providing a more detailed account of his involvement. His book, “Enhanced Interrogation: Inside the Minds and Motives of the Islamic Terrorists Trying to Destroy America” (Crown Forum) was written with Bill Harlow, a former C. I. A. spokesman. It was reviewed by the agency before release. (The New York Times obtained a copy of the book before its publication date.) In the book, Dr. Mitchell alleges that harsh interrogation techniques he devised and carried out, based on those he used as an Air Force trainer in survival schools to prepare airmen if they became prisoners of war, protected the detainees from even worse abuse by the C. I. A. Dr. Mitchell wrote that he and Dr. Jessen sequestered prisoners in closed boxes, forced them to hold painful positions for hours and prevented them from sleeping for days. He also takes credit for suggesting and implementing waterboarding — covering a detainee’s face with a cloth and pouring water over it to simulate the sensation of drowning — among other techniques. “Although they were unpleasant, their use protected detainees from being subjected to unproven and perhaps harsher techniques made up on the fly that could have been much worse,” he wrote. C. I. A. officers, he added, “had already decided to get rough. ” Mr. Obama declined to open a broad inquiry into the treatment of terrorism suspects, saying as that the nation needed to “look forward. ” He did not rule out prosecuting those who went beyond techniques authorized by the Justice Department, but no one has been charged with those offenses under his watch. During the George W. Bush administration, a C. I. A. contractor was convicted in the death of an Afghan detainee at an American military base in Afghanistan. Henry F. Schuelke, a Washington lawyer with the firm Blank Rome, who represents Dr. Mitchell and Dr. Jessen, said that he believed his clients “were left holding the bag” while C. I. A. officials involved in the program have been protected from the lawsuit. “The government and its officers, namely many of the C. I. A. officers, enjoy sovereign immunity,” Mr. Schuelke said in an interview. Mr. Schuelke and colleagues have argued in court that the senior United States District Court judge, Justin L. Quackenbush, should dismiss the case because, among other reasons, “sovereign immunity” extended to their clients, who were acting on the government’s behalf. But the judge denied the motion and the case has proceeded under the Alien Tort Statute, which allows foreigners to sue in United States court for violations of their human rights. If the former detainees are successful, it would be the first time a United States civilian court has held individuals accountable for their role in developing counterterrorism policies after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. “All of the other cases have been thrown out on procedural grounds,” said Jonathan Hafetz, a professor at Seton Hall Law School. “If this is successful, it could pave the way for other torture victims to seek redress. ” Still, some lawyers say it could be difficult for the plaintiffs to prevail. The case has proceeded in large part because the psychologists’ role in the program has already been documented, particularly in the declassified executive summary of a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation of the interrogation program released in 2014. While the Justice Department has fought to restrict the scope of sensitive information that it has been asked to produce in the case, it has thus far not asserted the state secrets privilege, a broad power to protect national security that could effectively shut down the suit. That could change, analysts say, under the Justice Department in the Trump administration. Representatives for Mr. Trump did not reply to requests for comment on the case, scheduled for trial in June 2017. Lawyers for the detainees said they had no need for classified information. “There are dramatically more details in the public record about what the C. I. A. and the psychologists did,” said Steven Watt, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union. “Now, any attempt to argue that torture is a state secret would be a transparent attempt to evade accountability. ” But lawyers for the psychologists contend they require access to secret information to prepare an adequate defense. In his book, Dr. Mitchell, who had been identified years before the Senate Intelligence Committee report and had formed a company that received $81 million for counterterrorism after Sept. 11 (his personal percentage of profit from the contract “was in the small single digits,” he wrote) nonetheless criticizes Senate staff for allegedly leaking his name, which he said made him a target of terrorist threats. He also says that the techniques he used sometimes caused resistant detainees to cooperate in providing useful intelligence, though the book offers little, if any, new evidence that this is the case. Dr. Mitchell says Democratic Senate staff “ documents to create a misleading narrative” from tens of thousands of pages of the C. I. A. ’s own documentation that the committee reviewed over several years while compiling its report. The report concluded that the C. I. A. ’s use of harsh interrogation techniques was brutal, costly, ineffective at gathering intelligence and “damaged the United States’ standing in the world. ” The C. I. A. did not provide comment on Dr. Mitchell’s book by the time of this article’s publication. In one instance, Dr. Mitchell describes his and Dr. Jessen’s experiences with Gul Rahman, an Afghan citizen captured in November 2002 in Peshawar. He was found dead, naked from the waist down on a bare concrete floor in the freezing cold at a secret C. I. A. prison that month, shackled and to a wall. A representative of Mr. Rahman’s estate is a party to the lawsuit against the two psychologists. Dr. Mitchell writes that he and Dr. Jessen raised concerns about Mr. Rahman’s before their departure from the site, just days before his death. “To imply that his death was part of the program I was involved with is simply false,” Dr. Mitchell writes. But a January 2003 C. I. A. memorandum outlining an investigation into Mr. Rahman’s death, released to the A. C. L. U. in late September, found that Dr. Jessen interrogated Mr. Rahman after he was subjected to “48 hours of sleep deprivation, auditory overload, total darkness, isolation, a cold shower, and rough treatment. ” (The document had previously been released, but in a more redacted form without the psychologists’ names.) During that interrogation, Mr. Rahman resisted answering questions and “complained about the violation of his human rights. ” Dr. Jessen also said he “thought it was worth trying” a rough takedown, during which Mr. Rahman was forced out of his cell, secured with Mylar tape after his clothes were cut off, covered with a hood, slapped, punched and then dragged along a dirt floor, the memo said. Mr. Rahman died of what an autopsy suggested was hypothermia. The other two plaintiffs, Suleiman Abdullah Salim, a Tanzanian, and Mohamed Ahmed Ben Soud, a Libyan, continue to suffer from psychological problems related to their torture, The New York Times has reported. The plaintiffs are seeking compensatory and punitive damages. “This case shows that there are consequences for torturing people,” Mr. Watt of the A. C. L. U. said, adding that it “should serve as a warning to anyone thinking about bringing back torture. ”

Drake Took Cousin To Prom Instagram Photos Fairley HS

The Syrian army field commander standing by the Euphrates River predicted that Islamic State militants would very soon be purged from its opposite bank. Their fate is hell and the Syrian army pursues its operations step by step until the total liberation of the city, he told Reuters Television during a tour of areas of Deir al-Zor in Syria s east recently retaken by the military and its allies. Islamic State s last major stronghold, the cities, towns and farms in the fertile strip along the Euphrates are fast becoming the focus of Syria s war and a potential flashpoint for wider geopolitical tensions. The Syrian army, supported by Russia and Iran-backed Shi ite Muslim militias, reached its besieged garrison in Deir al-Zor this month after a long desert campaign and is now fighting to recapture the city and its environs. It has also crossed the Euphrates, establishing a bridgehead opposite Deir al-Zor on the east bank, where Kurdish and Arab militias backed by a U.S.-led coalition are waging a rival campaign against Islamic State. The risk of open conflict between the two offensives has mostly been avoided despite their proximity in campaigns further upstream in recent months, thanks to U.S.-Russian dialogue. But new moments of friction have shown how the danger is rising as the fight against Islamic State nears its climax and both offensives race to secure ground in the oil-rich region. The U.S.-led coalition this week accused Russia of targeting the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance it backs, and Russia on Thursday accused the SDF of twice shelling the Syrian army, adding it would retaliate in future. The field commander standing on the Euphrates riverbank did not address those issues, but he told Reuters the army would capture the villages opposite where he stood in al-Bughilia, an area close to where the SDF is operating. Soon, the forces will be deployed toward al-Safira and al-Huseiniya and they will be purged of Daesh, he said, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State. Syrian state news agency SANA reported on Thursday that the army had expanded its area of control on the east bank of the Euphrates and a military media unit run by the army s ally Hezbollah said they had gained control of another village there. Above the Euphrates at Deir al-Zor, Reuters photographs showed soldiers and journalists peering over a wall to take pictures of a river along which the Syrian army has only recently gained stretches of land after an absence of years. On the other side of the pale water was flat farmland held by Islamic State. The army suddenly ordered reporters to leave the riverbank when soldiers noticed plumes of dust on the other side that might signal approaching militants. A little way downstream, there was fighting on Sakr island, opposite Deir al-Zor s southern quarters, and the al-Mayadin television channel showed live images of farmland where clashes were taking place, smoke rising among the trees. In recaptured areas of the city, Reuters photographs showed signs of Islamic State s recent presence. Its slogans were written on shopfronts. An armored vehicle, marked Army of the Caliphate , stood damaged. Daesh presents a fierce resistance and uses car bombs and heavy and medium weapons, the field commander said. There is a decision from the political leadership and the military command in the army to battle and hunt Daesh, and end their presence in Deir al-Zor and beyond. When the morning Islamic prayer broke across the city, it was at times drowned out by the sound of warplanes flying above. On the desert road back from Deir al-Zor to government-held areas in the west, a stream of military convoys was passing, according to the Reuters journalists. With war coming to the east bank of the Euphrates, the convoys were carrying amphibious armored vehicles, bridge parts and boats.

While vice-president Mike Pence gave a commencement speech Sunday at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana where he was the bigoted governor before joining team Trump, a large group of graduating students walked out. One of the students wore a rainbow cape, while some of the others who walked out in protest sported rainbow flags on their graduation caps. Congratulations to a generation of promise. We are proud of you all, Pence said, according to WNDU. For this son of Indiana, it is great to be back home again. Pence praised Donald Trump s executive order on religious freedom and targeted what he called political correctness on campus, saying it was wholly outside the American tradition. He criticized what he called college safe spaces. While this institution has maintained an atmosphere of civility and open debate, far too many campuses across America have become characterized by speech codes, safe spaces, tone policing, administration-sanctioned political correctness all of which amounts to the suppression of free speech, he said, according to The Huffington Post. These practices are destructive of learning and the pursuit of knowledge. We re glad that Pence believes in the First Amendment because his boss certainly doesn t. Valedictorian C.J. Pine gave an address prior to Pence s speech in which he called for equal rights and religious freedom for Muslims and people of all faiths. Our generation must stand against the scapegoating of Muslims, Pine said. If we are going to build walls between American students and international students, then I am skewered on the fence, Pine said.Father John Jenkins, Notre Dame s president, called for less division. Too often the love that fires our passion is twisted into a hatred in which we disagree, Jenkins said.Watch:A large group of students just walked out of Notre Dame's commencement during VP Mike Pence's address. #ND2017 pic.twitter.com/g3dCuqPbXg WNDU (@WNDU) May 21, 2017Last week, over 1,700 Notre Dame alumni signed a letter to express their disappointment over the school s decision to have Pence give the commencement address.While Trump was on the campaign trail he said to ask the gays about his actions to help LGBTQ groups compared to Hillary Clinton. However, Trump chose Mike Pence as his vice-president, a man who has been hostile to the gay community.Since Pence is an advocate of free speech and is supposedly against political correctness then he must have been really proud of the students who walked out during his speech.Image via screen capture.

@FlyboyMeel Indian Media has no principles. They showed Exit polls n BJP Manifesto on Voting day against EC Rules. @BDUTT @dhume

Russia has proposed ending the publication of the names of banks which finance Russian state-controlled arms producers, in a possible sign that Moscow is preparing for new U.S. sanctions. The draft law would, if adopted, mean the Russian central bank no longer has to publish a list of banks dealing with the arms industry, which included eight lenders as of Oct. 1. Russia s government and the president would be able to include any banks they wanted to in such deals and would no longer publish the criteria for their involvement. Under current regulations only state-controlled or central bank-controlled lenders with capital of not less then 100 billion rubles ($1.7 billion) may get such contracts. Russian President Vladimir Putin chaired a meeting on Tuesday to discuss building up the country s military. The U.S. State Department last month named 39 Russian defense and intelligence-related entities following the signing in August of a new sanctions law by President Donald Trump to punish Moscow after U.S. intelligence agencies concluded it meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, allegations the Kremlin has repeatedly denied. The U.S. law calls on the president to impose sanctions on anyone he identifies as having engaged in a significant transaction with a person that is part of, or operates for or on behalf of, the defense or intelligence sectors of the Russian government.. The action does not itself impose new sanctions, and determinations will be made on a case by case basis, State Department officials said in October. Banks on the list include state-controlled majors Sberbank, VTB and Russian Agriculture Bank, along with private-owned Rossiya and Gazprombank, in which gas producer Gazprom holds a stake. Sberbank has proposed establishing a special bank to finance Russia s military industry as a means of side-stepping the sanctions, three sources familiar with the talks told Reuters. Sberbank declined to comment.

Presidents never get second chances to make first impressions. So, Donald Trump’s opportunities to repeal and replace ObamaCare after this week’s failures diminish as time passes. [The late Milton Friedman in his book The Tyranny of the Status Quo noted that “a new administration has some six to nine months in which to achieve major changes if it does not seize the opportunity to act decisively during that period, it will not have another such opportunity. Further changes come slowly or not at all, and counterattacks develop against the initial changes. The temporarily routed political forces regroup, and they tend to mobilize everyone who was adversely affected by the changes, while the proponents of the changes tend to relax after their initial victories. ” From Franklin Roosevelt’s accomplishments during his first hundred days to Ronald Reagan’s Economic Recovery Act, the signature legislative achievements of presidential administrations generally conform to Friedman’s axiom. Rahm Emanuel’s “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste” axiom proves an exception to this rule. Assassination attempts, wars, and other unforeseen events allow presidents to steamroll their legislation through Congress. A second exception involves legislation that receives bipartisan support. Reagan’s Tax Reform Act of 1986, which represented a larger cut than his initial reduction, received support from such Democrats as Senator Bill Bradley and Dick Gephardt. Bill Clinton’s reluctant welfare reform, one of the more significant legislative achievements of his presidency, similarly received support from important figures in the opposition party, notably Speaker Newt Gingrich, as most members from his own Democratic Party voted “no. ” Given the partisan rancor surrounding ObamaCare, foreseeing a scenario where the parties get together to repeal and replace seems the stuff of fantasy. And the idea of a crisis erupting that leads to repeal appears equally . So, either the Republicans regroup to unite to get this done now or look forward to a future in which ObamaCare becomes as much as an untouchable third rail as Medicare or Social Security. For the side, “don’t make the perfect the enemy of the good” comes to mind as the strongest argument. Instead of Americans get ObamaCare because of the recalcitrance of conservative members of Congress. The people want their Republican colleagues to act like they control the House, Senate, and the presidency instead of capitulating to the people who no longer control the House, Senate, and presidency as they did when ObamaCare passed. Why settle for a status quo when they could get the status quo ante? Seven years ago, all Republicans opposed ObamaCare. Now in the majority, can’t they whip up 90 percent of their caucus in the House to repeal it? Prospects for Republicans fulfilling their promise to the American people now look bleak. And conservatives, once again, find themselves conserving liberal laws. “We’re going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future,” predicted Paul Ryan after his bill went down in flames before it even received a vote. Congressman Michael Burgess bluntly explained, “We’re done with this. ” Deflated Republican voters may similarly find themselves done with their representatives on the Hill. The GOP enjoyed a floating pitch down the middle of the plate. They whiffed. Such golden opportunities rarely present themselves. That’s the tyranny of the status quo.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The successful conclusion of the Trans Pacific Partnership trade talks remains the top legislative item for the United States, a top economic adviser to President Barack Obama said on Tuesday. White House National Security Council adviser Christina Segal-Knowles told a news conference ahead of the Sept. 4-5 G20 summit in China that talks on a trade pact with Europe were still in progress, despite comments from France and Germany that they were in doubt. The Asian talks are stalled in Congress and both Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump have said they would not approve the deal in its current form, if elected president in November. Segal-Knowles said corporate tax issues would be on the G20’s agenda in China, although when asked whether the European Union’s tax ruling on Apple Inc’s deal with Ireland would be discussed, she did not directly address the issue facing the company.

Trump VP’s plane slides off runway at New York airport Trump VP’s plane slides off runway at New York airport By 0 84 US Republican vice presidential candidate Mike Pence’s plane slides off runway at LaGuardia Airport in New York in heavy rain. The plane carrying Pence ended up on the grass next to the runway in the incident which took place on Thursday night. None of the 37 passengers on board were injured. The airport has been closed until further notice. (To be updated…)

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon released an aerial photo on Friday of a pulverized building in Syria in an unusual defense of an American airstrike that officials said killed dozens of Al Qaeda operatives at a meeting place — and not civilians at a mosque, as activists and local residents maintain. Far from settling the debate, however, the photo prompted fresh challenges from local activists who argued that the building was part of a religious complex. Some of them distributed their own photos of the devastation, fueling the dueling narratives. The Pentagon has not said which Qaeda leaders it believes were killed in the strike but suggested it might make that information public once it receives confirmation. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that 49 people had been killed in what the group described as a “massacre” of civilians who were undergoing religious instruction. Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said officials had watched the building “for some time” before unleashing a barrage of missiles and bombs after evening prayers on Thursday. He said dozens of militants had been killed in the strike on the building in the Syrian village of Al Jinah, in Aleppo Province. “At this particular time, its purpose was to host this meeting of very senior people in Al Qaeda,” Captain Davis said. Officials emphasized that widely recognized military guidelines allow sites to be targeted for attacks based on what they are being used for at a given moment — and not on their general purpose or even typical use. Mohamed Ibrahim, who lives in a town a few miles away, described the building as an assembly hall and dining area for worshipers to gather for religious lessons. Photos taken at the site on Friday by Syrian activists showed a black sign outside a adjoining structure that identified it as part of the Omar ibn mosque. “Reconstructing God’s mosques for those who believe in God and the last day,” said the sign, according to photographs of the building rubble that were provided by activists. The photo that the Pentagon distributed shows a blackened crater where a building once stood in the village. An adjoining structure appears to be largely intact, as do about a dozen vehicles on the street. A small mosque across the street appears to be unscathed. American military officials said the picture was taken within five minutes after the attack was carried out, around 7 p. m. local time, by drones armed with Hellfire missiles and at least one warplane equipped with bombs. Members of Al Qaeda and other militants have long understood that the United States’ rules of engagement discourage attacks on mosques, schools and hospitals without extensive scrutiny by officials. As a result, militants have often operated in these locations, assuming that doing so will afford them a measure of protection. But large mosques can consist of multiple buildings, sometimes only several yards apart, and are used for wedding parties, ablutions or as residences for local clerics. Pentagon spokesmen did not say whether the building that was targeted had been affiliated with the nearby mosque. Eric J. Pahon, a Defense Department spokesman, described the structure as a “partially constructed community meeting hall” that Qaeda leaders had used to indoctrinate their fighters. Mr. Pahon said that evening prayers at the mosque had concluded by the time the strike was carried out. The Pentagon said that it had no information to confirm there were civilian casualties but would investigate any credible allegations that noncombatants had been killed or injured. “We take all allegations of civilian casualties seriously,” Mr. Pahon said. “This strike was conducted after we learned that senior A. Q. leaders were in the area and were attending this meeting. ” Local activists told a sharply different story after visiting the site of the attack and talking to residents, some of whom said the building was used for prayers and readings of the Quran. “They all repeated the same story: That they gather there to pray and there was no military presence or military activities,” said Mohamed of the Aleppo Media Center, who visited the site on Thursday, after the strike, and again on Friday. Syrian rescue workers wearing white helmets were observed digging people out of the rubble. Western Aleppo Province and Idlib Province are increasingly packed with people displaced from areas across Syria that the government has taken over in a civil war that has dragged on for six years. Syrian and Russian forces have been accused of indiscriminately targeting schools and hospitals, and the American strike has been portrayed by some residents as another instance in which civilians have been harmed. While the coalition has been preparing for an assault on Raqqa, the de facto capital of the Islamic State, it has been waging a parallel series of airstrikes against Al Qaeda, virtually all of which have occurred in Idlib Province.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump on Thursday fired back at a critic in his own party who had denounced the president’s response to the Charlottesville, Virginia, attack, saying he had not drawn a “moral equivalency” between white hate groups and counter-protesters. Trump, on Twitter, called fellow Republican U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham’s statement a day earlier “a disgusting lie.” On Wednesday, Graham had said Trump’s statements after the weekend attack had suggested “moral equivalency” between the two sides and urged him to instead use his words to heal Americans instead.

LONDON — “Get on with it. ” With those words late in a major speech on Tuesday, Prime Minister Theresa May charted Britain’s course toward a clean break with the European Union and expressed her fondest hope: that the time for “division and discord” is over. Her speech outlined what promised to be a hugely complex, negotiation, and it defined the broad objectives, but not the details, of British withdrawal. “The United Kingdom is leaving the European Union, and my job is to get the right deal for Britain as we do,” she said. With the address, Mrs. May began the jockeying that will lead to a break after more than four decades of tight integration, and define Britain’s relations with its neighbors for decades to come. She confirmed that Britain is determined to regain control of migration from the European Union and rejected the supremacy of the European Court of Justice. That stance is anathema to the European Union, which has made the free movement of people — as well as goods, capital and services — a bedrock principle and which relies on the court to arbitrate. “Let me be clear,” Mrs. May said, acknowledging the differences. “What I am proposing cannot mean remaining in the single market. ” She said that she hoped to complete a final deal with the European Union by March 2019 and that it would be voted on by both houses of Parliament. She was not clear about what would happen if Parliament rejected the deal, though some speculated that a rejection would result in the sort of chaotic, “cliff edge” breakup that she and Britain’s bankers and business leaders hoped to avoid. Mrs. May struck a diplomatic note, including an appeal for a new partnership with Continental Europe, but not at all costs. “We seek a new and equal partnership — between an independent, global Britain and our friends and allies in the E. U.,” Mrs. May said. “Not partial membership of the European Union, associate membership of the European Union, or anything that leaves us half in, half out. ” And she appealed to Britons, especially to those in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, to unite behind the government and stop refighting the referendum that backed leaving the bloc, which she had opposed. The reaction among her opponents in the “remain” camp was predictably harsh and seemed to herald a long and bruising process. “Theresa May has confirmed Britain is heading for a hard Brexit,” said Tim Farron, the leader of the centrist Liberal Democrats. “She claimed people voted to leave the single market. They didn’t. She has made the choice to do massive damage to the British economy. ” The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, accused the Tories of turning Britain into “a tax haven,” with their recent threat to slash corporate taxes if a good deal cannot be reached with the European Union. The speech, which provided some degree of substance, gained a warmer reception in the markets, with the pound seeming to stabilize after several jittery days. It rose as much as 1 percent against the dollar during her speech, while stocks on the London exchange fell. Supporters of a withdrawal have been encouraged as well by reports that other countries in the bloc have recognized that they might suffer if there was a complete rupture and they were denied access to London’s financial services sector. But British businesses remained nervous. Carolyn Fairbairn, director general of the Confederation of British Industry, a business lobbying group, welcomed the greater clarity provided by Mrs. May but worried that “ruling out membership of the single market has reduced options for maintaining a trading relationship between the U. K. and the E. U. ” Kallum Pickering, senior Britain economist at Berenberg Bank in London, was more blunt, writing in an analysis that “as we do not expect the E. U. to compromise its principles, the U. K. is set to face significant economic consequences from Brexit. ” Few analysts expect the negotiations to go as smoothly or as quickly as Mrs. May seemed to say in her speech. In recognition of the troubles that may lie ahead, Mark Boleat, the policy chairman for the City of London Corporation, the heart of Britain’s financial services industry, urged Mrs. May to swiftly secure a transition deal that would provide the certainty that businesses crave. Charles Brasted, a partner at Hogan Lovells, an international law firm, cautioned that the deal Mrs. May wanted was likely to be seen by the European Union as “precisely the cherry picking that they have warned against. ” He added: “The objectives are now clear. The path towards them is uncharted. ” But he warned that “every one of the aspirations expressed by the U. K. government today will demand exceptional political skill to negotiate and will be complex to implement legally and commercially. ” In Europe, Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, said on Twitter: “Sad process, surrealistic times but at least more realistic announcement on #Brexit. ” Germany’s foreign minister, Steinmeier, welcomed Mrs. May’s “desire for a positive and constructive partnership, a friendship with a strong E. U.,” which Germany would reciprocate. Mrs. May’s speech, delivered in the grand surroundings of Lancaster House in London, was the most closely watched statement on European policy since January 2013, when the prime minister at the time, David Cameron, promised to hold a referendum on European Union membership. The prospect that Britain would remain part of the single market has been fading since Mrs. May said in October that she would demand complete control of migration from the European Union and release from the European Court of Justice. The extent to which Mrs. May would be willing to compromise to maintain some access to the single market and to the customs union for goods was less clear. Membership in the customs union limits the ability of member countries to strike individual deals with nations. So she said she wanted a deal that would allow Britain to trade freely with the world, but still have as much trade as possible with European Union countries. Ideally, Britain would like to have its cake and eat it, in the memorable phrase of the foreign secretary, Boris Johnson. In other words, Britain would reject what it disliked about the bloc, like freedom of movement, but keep trade unencumbered as it tried to get the best possible trading deal consistent with its other objectives. While European nations are expected to be stingy with market access, Mr. Pickering says he believes they will eventually bend. In the final deal, he wrote, he still expects Britain and the European Union to agree to a deal in which “the U. K. maintains a good level of access to the E. U.’s goods markets and limited access to the services markets. ” “Crucially, we expect the U. K. to lose its E. U. financial services passport,” Mr. Pickering wrote, referring to a system that allowed banks based in Britain to offer financial services throughout the bloc. “This follows from the U. K. raising some modest barriers to migration from the E. U. ” Many European Union countries have backed taking a hard line against Britain to send a message to other member states that might consider leaving. Anticipating that, Mrs. May said that Britain wanted a successful European Union and a friendly partnership, but that “no deal for Britain is better than a bad deal for Britain. ”

ROSWELL, Ga. — It was 1 in the morning, and the orthopedic surgeon on call was preparing to operate on a woman whose foot had been shattered in a car wreck, after hours of tending to other patients. The woman’s husband, Jeff Anderson, asked him, “Are you too tired to do this?” “He looked me straight in the eye — very quiet guy — and said, ‘I was born to do this,’” Mr. Anderson recalled. The surgeon that night more than 20 years ago was Representative Tom Price of Georgia, Donald J. Trump’s nominee for secretary of health and human services, the cabinet official who will lead the new administration’s efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. Since then, the assuredness that defined Mr. Price as a surgeon has carried into his political career. He has always listened politely to other viewpoints but never swerved from his policy mission to protect his former profession from what he views as government intrusion. Many who knew Mr. Price as a doctor here in Atlanta’s affluent northern suburbs praise his commitment to his patients. But his legislative record shows that over eight years in the Georgia Senate and 12 years in Congress, he has advocated at least as much for physician groups and health care companies — seeking to limit damages in malpractice cases, for instance, and voting against legislation that would have required the government to negotiate lower drug prices for Medicare beneficiaries. Mr. Price has routinely argued that patients are the driving force behind his efforts. Still, his positions have often coincided with the financial interests of groups whose donations have helped advance his political career. Doctors themselves are sharply divided over his nomination, and some are particularly galled by Mr. Price’s enmity for the Affordable Care Act and opposition to abortion rights. Some of his positions even clash with those of Mr. Trump, who wants to pressure pharmaceutical companies on drug prices, for example, and has pledged to largely leave Medicare alone. If confirmed, Mr. Price, 62, will soon have far more power to influence the nation’s vast health care system than he ever did as a lawmaker. One of his first tasks would be to help Mr. Trump and Republicans in Congress determine how to eviscerate and replace the health law, a goal he has held since the law’s passage in 2010. But as leader of the agency that oversees Medicare, Medicaid, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Mr. Price would also hold considerable regulatory power, with the ability to influence everything from how applications to market new drugs are reviewed to how doctors are compensated for treating elderly and poor patients. As Mr. Price prepares for two confirmation hearings — the first of which is scheduled for Wednesday — his past efforts on behalf of companies, which have donated generously to his campaigns, are under scrutiny. So, too, is Mr. Price’s history of trading in biomedical, pharmaceutical and health insurance stocks while serving on the health subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee. Democrats have called for investigations into whether he traded stock based on information he gleaned as a congressman. Last year, Mr. Price bought stock in a company that makes orthopedic implants shortly before introducing legislation that could have protected the company, Zimmer Biomet, from financial losses due to a new federal regulation. The regulation sought to rein in spending on joint replacements for Medicare patients Mr. Price’s legislation would have delayed its implementation. After he introduced it, Zimmer’s political action committee contributed to his campaign the string of events was first reported Monday by CNN. Phillip J. Blando, a spokesman for the Trump transition team, said Mr. Price “had no knowledge or input into the purchase” of the Zimmer stock, which he said was made by a broker. Asked why Mr. Price had not directed his broker to avoid buying stocks while he wrote and voted on health legislation, Mr. Blando said, “We know that other members of Congress, including Democrats, have holdings in health care stocks and vote on legislation. ” In a letter to an ethics lawyer at the Department of Health and Human Services last week Mr. Price said he would divest himself of holdings in 43 and other stocks to avoid conflicts of interest. Noting that the Office of Government Ethics had completed an “exhaustive review” of Mr. Price’s financial holdings, Mr. Blando said last week that Mr. Price “takes his obligation to uphold the public trust very seriously. ” Although not among the billionaires whom Mr. Trump has tapped for his cabinet, Mr. Price has profited from medicine, both as a doctor and as an active investor in health companies including Aetna, Squibb and Zimmer Biomet, which makes artificial joints and other medical devices. He has an estimated net worth of $13. 6 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, with assets that include real estate. He has also been an effective : Even in his first run for office in 1996, his war chest of $173, 000, much of which came from doctors and medical companies, led his poorly financed Democratic opponent to call him “Dr. Dollar. ” A brisk, workaholic who relishes the granular details of legislative proposals and process, Mr. Price expressed concern last year about Mr. Trump’s grasp of the issues. Taking questions from a student group at Emory University, he said he had voted for Marco Rubio in the Republican primary and called Mr. Trump an “empty policy vessel” who was “dangerous for politics and the economy,” according to the student newspaper. Mr. Price, who declined to be interviewed, was engaged in a number of pitched partisan battles even before coming to Washington in 2005. In the Georgia Legislature, he voted against a new state flag that minimized the Confederate battle cross and supported a constitutional amendment banning marriage. In Congress, he has taken stances seen as antithetical to public health, opposing regulating tobacco as a drug and favoring legislation that would make it easier to sell bullets that can pierce armor. He has also written a fairly detailed plan for replacing the Affordable Care Act. It would repeal the law’s expansion of Medicaid and provide tax credits to help with the cost of coverage based on age instead of income, with older people getting higher credits. Mr. Price grew up in Dearborn, Mich. the son and grandson of doctors who heavily influenced his career choice. He has publicly recalled making house calls with his grandfather, who practiced medicine into his 90s. After medical school at the University of Michigan, he moved to Georgia, completing his residency at Emory and setting up practice in Roswell, a relatively affluent, conservative suburb of Atlanta. In the 1990s, his practice, Compass Orthopedics, was among seven in the Atlanta area that merged into a large group that became known as Resurgens Orthopaedics. It became the largest orthopedic practice in Georgia, and now has 100 doctors and 1, 000 employees spread over 21 locations. Dr. Steven B. Wertheim, another founding partner of Resurgens, said one goal of the consolidation was to gain bargaining power with insurance companies and to provide M. R. I. s, physical therapy and even certain outpatient operations rather than referring patients to other providers or operating at hospitals. More leverage with insurers often allows doctors to extract higher rates. “His overall gist was, ‘Look, if all we did was practice good medicine, we’d be broke by tomorrow,’” Dr. Wertheim said of Mr. Price. “He understood the need to run a business. ” As a physician, Mr. Price was constantly frustrated by having to seek insurance companies’ approval for his patients to get an expensive diagnostic test or physical therapy — a common complaint among specialists. Similarly, he resented when federal health regulators intervened in something he and his partners thought they were already doing well, like using electronic medical records. “Those are the things that drove him crazy,” Dr. Wertheim said. His resentment of government intervention in medicine drove Mr. Price to become involved in the Medical Association of Georgia early in his career, and his work there led him to run for office in 1995, when the House seat in his district opened up. But by 2002, as his legislative duties increased, he traded his suburban practice for a job at Grady Memorial Hospital, a vast, chaotic, aging complex, just a few blocks from the State Capitol. For the next two years, Mr. Price was the medical director of Grady’s orthopedic clinic, seeing a vastly different population than the privately insured patients he was used to. Most of Grady’s patients are poor and black, and many lack any form of insurance. Long waits for care are the norm, and trauma, including gunshot wounds, is a big part of the caseload. “He called me and asked if there was a position,” said Dr. James R. Roberson, the chairman of the orthopedics department at Emory University School of Medicine, whose residents train at Grady. “He needed some flexibility — that was most of his impetus to want to return to Grady, because he was really very interested in pursuing a political career. ” Dr. Roberson said that Mr. Price played a “unique role” at the clinic, training residents and overseeing patient care but also seeking to address inefficiencies — long wait times, for example — and representing the clinic at hospital administrative meetings. Although he saw patients, he did not perform surgery or need to be on call at night — an unusual arrangement, Dr. Roberson said. In the Legislature, Mr. Price spent his first six years in the powerless minority, although he quickly rose to the position of minority whip. His fortunes changed in 2003, after Sonny Perdue became the first Republican governor since Reconstruction and persuaded enough Democrats to switch parties to put the Senate into Republican hands. As the majority leader, Mr. Price’s intimate knowledge of procedural rules and maneuvers, gleaned from assiduous research, helped advance his party’s agenda. In the state Legislature, he was the leader who delivered bad news, the tactician to some of his colleagues’ more backslapping style. His sense of humor, when he used it, was dry. Colleagues often wondered if he slept. “He’s a machine,” said Russell K. Paul, a Republican who served in the State Senate with Mr. Price. During his two years in the majority, Mr. Price’s top priority was curbing the rising cost of medical malpractice insurance, which he said was forcing hospitals and nursing homes to close and forcing doctors to limit which procedures they performed. “He was very bright, articulate, and smart enough to be able to see the different sides,” said Tom Bordeaux, a former Democratic state lawmaker and trial lawyer who negotiated with Mr. Price over a package of bills Mr. Price introduced to limit doctors’ liability in malpractice cases. “But he was just totally unwilling. He was very gracious and he was completely inflexible. ” Ultimately, Mr. Price failed to persuade even his Republican colleagues to accept a provision that would have capped damages for malpractice victims at $250, 000. Mr. Paul, now the mayor of Sandy Springs, Ga. said Mr. Price had become more partisan during his last few years in the Legislature, when the Republicans saw an opportunity to tip the balance of power in their favor for the first time since Reconstruction. “There was not a lot of bipartisan collegiality when it came to trying to control the government in Georgia,” Mr. Paul said, “and that environment was the crucible that began to turn Tom into a hardened political warrior. ” In Congress, Mr. Price has made frequent speeches to health industry and physician groups, and has occasionally introduced legislation on their behalf. Last year, for example, he sponsored a bill fighting new lower Medicare payment rates for “durable medical equipment” like wheelchairs and canes. A few months later, he spoke at a conference for companies that supply such equipment, which held a $ on his behalf that same day. Mr. Price has also supported proposals to overhaul Medicare — potentially putting him at odds with his new boss, Mr. Trump, who has pledged not to “touch” the program. Speaking to a student group at the University of Michigan in 2015, Mr. Price expressed concern that Mr. Trump would not listen to others, including Congress, if elected. “When I hear Trump saying things like, ‘I’ll just do XYZ,’ without seemingly any regard for the legislative branch,” Mr. Price told the group, “it gives me some thought. ”

@martydrinksbeer drinking early this morning are you? Needing a little attention?

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.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said in a newspaper interview that Spain would not be divided, a week after Catalonia held a referendum that authorities there say showed voters overwhelmingly support independence. Asked if there was a risk that Spain would be divided, Rajoy said in an interview published in Die Welt on Monday: Absolutely not. Spain will not be divided and national unity will be preserved. We ll do everything that legislation allows to ensure that. Catalonia, which has its own language and culture and is led by a pro-independence regional government, held the Oct. 1 referendum over secession in defiance of Spain s constitutional court which had declared the vote illegal. [nL8N1MJ0L9]

CNN anchor Brian Stelter went off on President Trump this afternoon for his tweet hitting back at the father of the UCLA player who was arrested in China for shoplifting. Fredricka Whitfield put on her best puzzled face and said to Stelter, the way this President prioritizes is very confusing to a lot of people. Stelter noted how this time last year Trump was touting how restrained he would be on Twitter: If this is restrained, I can t imagine what it would look like if he were to be unrestrained. I mean, think about this. He s just recently let the NFL kneeling controversy start to subside, start to fade away, and now here he is calling out these players and the families again. I think it s immature at best, Fred, but it s really race-baiting at worst. That s gonna be debated, that s gonna be argued about, but I want to put that on the table: it sure looks like race-baiting to a lot of people. HOW THE HECK IS THIS RACE-BAITING? This is the same doofus who said President Trump s tweets about Puerto Rico were dog whistles Why is it always racism with the left? Why?RACE BAITING? HOW IS THIS RACE BAITING?HERE S THE PRESIDENT S TWEET AND LAVAR BALL S COMMENT HOW IN THE HECK IS THIS ANYTHING BUT THE TRUTH? Oh my gosh! This is awesome! President Trump tweeted back to the dad of the UCLA basketball player who was arrested while in China: Now that the three basketball players are out of China and saved from years in jail, LaVar Ball, the father of LiAngelo, is unaccepting of what I did for his son and that shoplifting is no big deal. I should have left them in jail!, Now that the three basketball players are out of China and saved from years in jail, LaVar Ball, the father of LiAngelo, is unaccepting of what I did for his son and that shoplifting is no big deal. I should have left them in jail! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 19, 2017THE JAPANESE PM TWEETED BACK HIS SUPPORT:Great job Donald! I know firsthand that your negotiating skills are world-class! @realDonaldTrump Shinzo Abe (@realShinzoAbe) November 19, 2017HERE S OUR PREVIOUS REPORT ON WHAT THE DAD SAID: Send this kid back to China! The ungrateful attitude of the father of LiAngelo Ball is so classless. What s even worse the dad makes excuses and even dismisses the son s crime as no big deal: They try to make a big deal out of nothing sometimes. I m from L.A. I ve seen a lot worse things happen than a guy taking some glasses. LaVar Ball, father of UCLA player with sticky fingers And we wonder why we have little thugs who aren t remorseful for their crimes? The sense of entitlement stinks to high heaven! Bad parenting LaVar Ball! WHO? Days after President Donald Trump touted his role in the release of three UCLA basketball students who were arrested in China, LaVar Ball, the father of one of those players, suggested the President had little to do with the matter. Who? Ball told ESPN when asked about Trump s involvement in the situation. What was he over there for? Don t tell me nothing. Everybody wants to make it seem like he helped me out. Trump s social media director, Dan Scavino, fired back at Ball on his personal Twitter account Saturday afternoon, saying Ball s son, LiAngelo, would be in China for a long, long, long time without the President s assistance. Wannabe @Lakers coach, BIG MOUTH @Lavarbigballer knows if it weren t for President @realDonaldTrump, his son would be in China for a long, long, long time! #FACT, Scavino wrote.LiAngelo Ball, along with two other players, Cody Riley and Jalen Hill, were arrested last week on suspicion of stealing sunglasses from a Louis Vuitton store while their team was in the Chinese city of Hangzhou. Trump had said he personally asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to intervene in the case.On Wednesday, Trump issued a call for gratitude from the players on twitter. He did get a thanks for their release after his tweet.STICKY FINGERS NO BIG DEAL?Athletic Director Dan Guerrero confirmed the trio shoplifted from three stores near their hotel Monday night. The three were identified the next morning after police searched their bags and found the stolen items.LaVar Ball told ESPN he was happy to have his son back, and also seemed to downplay his alleged crime. As long as my boy s back here, I m fine, he said. I m happy with how things were handled. A lot of people like to say a lot of things that they thought happened over there. Like I told him, They try to make a big deal out of nothing sometimes. I m from L.A. I ve seen a lot worse things happen than a guy taking some glasses. All three players have been suspended from the UCLA basketball team indefinitely.

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U.S. House of Representatives Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi urged Republicans to establish a process to move forward on improvements to Obamacare on Friday after their healthcare reform effort failed in the Senate. “We call upon the speaker to establish a process

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Email An Oregon jury delivered a stunning blow to federal prosecutors Thursday, acquitting seven principal defendants in the five-week long trial of participants in the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge that riveted national attention on southeastern Oregon earlier this year. The jury acquitted brothers Amman and Ryan Bundy, the most high-profile of the occupation participants, along with five of their co-defendants, of charges of conspiring to use “force, intimidation, and threats” to prevent federal employees from working at the refuge. They were also charged with possessing a firearm in a federal facility with the intent that it “be used in the commission of a crime.” Also acquitted were: Shawna Cox, Kenneth Medenbach, Jeff Banta, David Fry and Neil Wampler (shown). The 41-day occupation of the wildlife refuge was launched in protest over the prosecution (and persecution) by federal authorities of Harney County ranchers Dwight Hammond, Jr. and Steven Hammond , who were charged with arson and received harsh prison sentences for setting controlled burns on their own range that got out of control, and did minor damage to small plots of federal land. As we have reported previously, federal agencies such as the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service, and the National Park Service regularly burn up huge tracts of “public land” — as well as private homes, farms, ranches, and businesses — with virtually no legal consequences. The hypocrisy, injustice, and viciousness of the federal prosecution of the Hammonds, a respected ranching family, played strongly with the many supporters — both local and from across the country — who flocked to their defense. Although there was plenty of photographic, video, and eye-witness evidence that many, if not most, of the participants in wildlife refuge were indeed armed, the jury noted that the prosecution had failed to prove “intent.” In an e-mail to the Oregonian/Oregon Live , one of the jurors, known only as Juror 4, stated that the defense lawyers' arguments, coupled with the jury instructions on how to apply the law to the evidence, resonated with the jury. The juror also suggested that the arrogance of the federal prosecutors offended members of the jury. "Inference, while possibly compelling, proved to be insulting or inadequate to 12 diversely situated people as a means to convict,'' Juror 4 wrote. "The air of triumphalism that the prosecution brought was not lost on any of us, nor was it warranted given their burden of proof.” A melee of sorts broke out in the courtroom after the jury verdicts were read, resulting in Ammon Bundy’s attorney, Marcus Mumford being tasered and taken down by several U.S. Marshalls. The courtroom drama began, reportedly, when Mumford protested U.S. District Judge Anna J. Brown’s order that Ammon and Ryan Bundy remain in custody. Mumford approached the bench and argued that his client should be allowed to leave the courtroom a free man, along with the other acquitted defendants, unless he was presented with papers providing the authority to place Bundy in custody. As the noise and commotion escalated, Judge Brown ordered, “Everybody out of the courtroom!” Mr. Mumford was briefly detained and then joined the celebrating defendants and their supporters on the courthouse steps. He said he was "very pleased, very gratified,” by the verdicts. “This jury was dedicated,” he said. “They listened to our case.” "I had a very peaceful feeling but I didn't know we'd all be found not guilty," said defendant Shawna Cox. "I'm so grateful to the jury.'' Defendant Neil Wampler told reporters, "It's a tremendous victory for rural America.'' U.S Attorney Billy Williams, who was in charge of the prosecution, was obviously disappointed. "While we had hoped for a different outcome, we respect the verdict of the jury and thank them for their dedicated service during this long and difficult trial,'' Williams said. "We strongly believed that this case needed to be brought before a Court, publicly tried and decided by a jury.'' Not surprisingly, Williams disappointment was shared by activists on the Left. The Oregonian/OregonLive quoted Jennifer Rokala, executive director of the Colorado-based Center for Western Priorities (CWP), one of the anti-ranching Big Green attack groups. "We are deeply disappointed in today's verdict, which puts our park rangers and scientists at further risk just for doing their jobs. The outcome of today's trial will undoubtedly embolden extremist groups,'' Rokala said. "It's imperative that local, state, and federal law enforcement ensure the safety of our land managers.'' However, Rokala and her faux environmentalist colleagues at CWP, are likely more concerned with expanding federal control over lands in the western states than with any real danger to “rangers and scientists” posed by “extremists” such as the Bundys. Rokala’s Center for Western Priorities is part of an immense network of Astroturf “environmental” organizations fronting for Big Business/Big Foundation globalists, and retailing the smears of the radical Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Echoing the CWP’s Rokala, the Washington Post used the verdict to cite so-called “experts” about the rise of “rightwing extremists.” Citing the subversive and discredited SPLC the Post reported: Experts say right-wing extremists were emboldened by the outcome of that standoff. The Southern Poverty Law Center issued a report stating that the Bundy ranch standoff “invigorated an extremist movement” across the country. The only violence or shooting that came out of the occupation was initiated by federal and state authorities when, on January 26 of this year, they shot to death rancher LaVoy Finicum , in a highway ambush they euphemistically called a “traffic stop.” The Bundy brothers and their father, Cliven Bundy, are still slated to stand trial on federal charges related to the 2014 standoff with federal authorities at their Nevada ranch . And another seven Malheur Wildlife Refuge defendants are scheduled to go on trial in Oregon in February. However, it is difficult to see how federal prosecutors intend to get a conviction on these lesser occupation participants, some of whom were merely visiting supporters, if they couldn’t get a jury to convict the “ringleaders.” Photo of defendant Neil Wampler being greeted by supporters after acquittal: AP Images Related stories :

But if my opponent had his way, the millions of Floridians who rely on it would've had their Social Security tied up in the stock market this week.

Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee asked the FBI on Thursday to launch a criminal investigation into U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ statements before Congress about his communication with Russian officials. “We would ask the FBI and the United States Attorney’s Office for Washington, D.C., to take up an immediate criminal investigation into these statements, which could potentially implicate a number of criminal laws including Lying to Congress and Perjury,” read the letter to FBI Director James Comey and U.S. Attorney Channing Phillips.

Home » Headlines » World News » Elite Turn On Hillary Campaign: Only the Deep State Could Be So Precise Back in August, I asked Could the Deep State Be Sabotaging Hillary? I think we now have a definitive answer: From Charles Hugh Smit h: The Deep State’s most prescient elements must derail Hillary’s campaign to clear a path to Trump’s executive team. Back in August, I asked Could the Deep State Be Sabotaging Hillary? I think we now have a definitive answer: “These blast points on Hillary’s campaign… too accurate for the Mainstream Media. Only the forces of the Imperial Deep State are so precise.” The Mainstream Media is presenting the FBI investigation as a “lose-lose” situation for embattled FBI Director Comey. If Comey remained quiet until after the election, he would be accused of colluding with the Clinton campaign and its allies in the Department of Justice (sic). But in going public, he stands accused by Democrats of “intervening in an election,” i.e. raising doubts about Hillary’s judgement and veracity days before Americans go to the polls. Another narrative has Comey’s hand forced by the threat of disgusted FBI agents leaking information that would show the FBI caved into political pressure from the Democratic Party and Clinton campaign to keep relevant material out of the public eye until after the election. I submit another much more powerful dynamic is in play: the upper ranks of the Deep State now view Hillary as an unacceptable liability . The word came down to Comey to act whether he wanted to or not, i.e. take one for the good of the nation/Deep State/Imperial Project. As a refresher: the Deep State is the unelected government (also called the invisible or shadow government) that is not as monolithic as generally assumed. The neo-conservative globalists who want Hillary to continue pushing their agenda are the more visible camp, but another less visible but highly motivated camp realizes Hillary and her neo-con agenda would severely damage the nation’s security and its global influence. It is this camp that is arranging for Hillary to lose. The consensus view seems to be that the Establishment and the Deep State see Trump as a loose cannon who might upset the neo-con apple cart by refusing to toe the neo-con line. This view overlooks the reality that significant segments of the Deep State view the neo-con strategy as an irredeemable failure . To these elements of the Deep State, Hillary is a threat precisely because she embraces the failed neo-con strategy and those who cling to it. From this point of view, Hillary as president would be an unmitigated disaster for the Deep State and the nation/Imperial Project it governs. Whatever else emerges from the emails being leaked or officially released, one conclusion is inescapable: Hillary’s judgement is hopelessly flawed. Combine her lack of judgement with her 24 years of accumulated baggage and her potential to push the neo-con agenda to the point of global disaster, and you get a potent need for the Deep State’s most prescient elements to derail her campaign and clear a path to Trump’s executive team. Once this path is clear, the management of Trump’s executive team can begin in earnest, a management process aimed at disengaging the nation and its global Empire from neo-con overreach. If you think this scenario is “impossible,” let’s see how the election plays out before deciding what’s “impossible” and what’s inevitable. Buy 2017 Gold Pandas and Buy 2017 Silver Panda Coins On Pre-Sale Now! Secure Your 2017 Panda Coins Today at SD Bullion!

@TIME positive results

Becca Kufrin Meets Her Suitors in a New Trailer for Season 14 of ‘The Bachelorette’

Wikipedia: Eliot A. Cohen ... co-founded the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), which was a center for prominent neoconservatives. He has been a member of the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, a committee of civilians and retired military officers that the U.S. Secretary of Defense may call upon for advice, that was instituted during the administration of President George W. Bush. He was put on the board after acquaintance Richard Perle put forward his name. Cohen has referred to the War on Terrorism as “World War IV”. In the run-up to the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, he was a member of Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, a group of prominent persons who pressed for an invasion. Cohen in WaPo May 3 2016: It’s over. Donald Trump, a man utterly unfit for the position by temperament, values and policy preferences, will be the Republican nominee for president. He will run against Hillary Clinton, who is easily the lesser evil ... Cohen in the NYT on May 17 2016: Mr. Trump’s temperament, his proclivity for insult and deceit and his advocacy of unpredictability would make him a presidential disaster — especially in the conduct of foreign policy, where clarity and consistency matter. ... Hillary Clinton is far better: She believes in the old consensus and will take tough lines on China and, increasingly, Russia. Cohen in The American Interest on November 10 2016 (immediately after Trump won): Trump may be better than we think. He does not have strong principles about much, which means he can shift. He is clearly willing to delegate legislation to Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell. And even abroad, his instincts incline him to increase U.S. strength—and to push back even against Russia if, as will surely happen, Putin double-crosses him. My guess is that sequester gets rolled back, as do lots of stupid regulations, and experiments in nudging and nagging Americans to behave the way progressives think they should. Cohen on Twitter November 15 2016 Eliot A Cohen @EliotACohen After exchange w Trump transition team, changed my recommendation: stay away. They're angry, arrogant, screaming "you LOST!" Will be ugly. Retweets 3,719 Likes 3,204 5:07 AM - 15 Nov 2016 I find the above very funny. How could that turncoat think he would be greeted by the Trump organization with anything but derision? Cohen believed he and his ilk would be welcome with candies and roses after insulting Trump in all major media? Who is the arrogant one in the above? Oh, by the way. Here is a headline from October 2013: President Obama to Republicans: I won. Deal with it . I do not remember Cohen, or anyone else, calling that "arrogant". While the papers are full of (badly) informed rumors about who will get this or that position in a Trump administration let's keep in mind that 90% of such rumors are just self promotions by people like Cohen who shill for the rumored job. That is why I will not write about John Bolton or Rudy Giuliani as coming Secretary of State. Both are possible (unqualified) candidates. But others are just as likely to get that position. We will only know who it is after the official release. Meanwhile Trump yesterday had a phonecall with the Russian President Putin. They discussed bilateral relations, Syria and fighting terrorism. Today the Russian and Syrian military started the long expected big campaign against the "moderate" al-Qaeda in east-Aleppo city and Idleb governate. Air strikes on east-Aleppo had been held back for 28 days. Today missiles and cruise missiles were launched against fixed targets and dozens of carrier and land launched airplanes attacked Nusra position on the various front and in its rear. Long range bombers flown from Russia joined the campaign. Trump seems to have voiced no objections to this offensive. The Russian military has upped its air defense in Syria. Additional to the S-400 system around its airport in Latakia seven S-300 systems were deployed as a screen against U.S. cruise missile attacks. These are joined by rehabilitated Syrian S-200 system and Pantsyr S-1 short range systems for point defense. This should be enough to deter any stupid idea the Pentagon hawks, or dumb neocons like Eliot Cohen, might have. Posted by b on November 15, 2016 at 12:13 PM | Permalink

NBC reports:The FBI is reviewing a new batch of Hillary Clinton emails, bureau director James Comey said in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Friday: In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation, he wrote.The very first thing to note is that Comey made no mention of a grand jury. The emails whose existence he learned of may have been the result of a subpoena in another investigation (Anthony Weiner). It was announced ten days ago that grand jury would be convened to investigate Weiner s sexting by the end of the month. The timing of Comey s letter strongly suggests that the devices containing new emails were obtained through a grand jury subpoena, with no immunity deals or evidence destruction needed. If that is the case, further subpoenas are quite possible, a tool that was left unused in the investigation to date.There are 3 competing theories as to why he might be doing this now that come to mind. He might be seeking to restore his badly damaged reputation, recognizing that the damage he has inflicted on the FBI is substantial. Three days ago, American Thinker published an open letter from a retired FBI Agent, Hugh Galyean, that laid out some of the damage Comey has inflicted on the institution he leads. There is little doubt that this reached many in the FBI family, putting in print what people have only whispered about. If those silenced voices start speaking out, Comey could face a serious loss of face. In this scenario, he is heading off a staff rebellion, possibly including mass resignations. Rush Limbaugh today discussed an alternative theory, that by announcing an FBI Investigation resuming, Comey is putting a lid on further attention to Wikileaks. I guess this means that Clinton forces will argue we must wait for the investigation to be complete (after the election) before speaking about what the evil Russians are planting into our politics. It is possible that something so dramatic came up in the pertinent emails that postponing a public reaction by not announcing the reopening of the investigation would, be regarded as political interference by covering up a smoking gun until after the election. In this scenario, Comey is assuming the evidence cannot be suppressed, and that he would be held accountable after it comes out.This scenario also indicates that we could be headed for a constitutional crisis, involving the possible indictment of a president-elect before an election. Or the evidence being turned over to the House of Representatives for impeachment hearings. Read more: American Thinker

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

Contaminated Food from China Now Entering the U.S. Under the 'Organic' Label The Chinese food production industry is one of the world's least-regulated and most corrupt, as ... Print Email http://humansarefree.com/2016/11/contaminated-food-from-china-now.html The Chinese food production industry is one of the world's least-regulated and most corrupt, as has repeatedly been proven time and again. Now, it appears, there is no trusting anything that comes from China marked "organic."Natural Health 365 reports that several foods within the country are so contaminated that Chinese citizens don't trust them. What's more, the countries that import these tainted foods are putting their citizens at risk.U.S. Customs personnel often turn away food shipments from China because they contain unsavory additives and drug residues, are mislabeled, or are just generally filthy. Some Chinese food exporters have responded by labeling their products "organic," though they are far from it.There are several factors at play which make Chinese claims of organic unreliable. First, environmental pollution from unrestrained and unregulated industrial growth has so polluted soil and waterways with toxic heavy metals that nothing grown in them is safe, much less organic. Also, there is so much fraudulent labeling and rampant corruption within the government and manufacturing sectors that it's not smart to trust what is put on packaging.In fact, farmers in China use water that is replete with heavy metals, Natural Health 365 noted in a separate report . In addition, water used for irrigation also contains organic and inorganic substances and pollutants. Chinese "organic" food is so contaminated that a person could get ill just by handling some of it. 'Dirty water' is all there is The report noted further:"This is reality – all of China's grains, vegetables and fruits are irrigated with untreated industrial wastewater. The Yellow River, which is considered unusable, supports major food producing areas in the northeast provinces."Many Chinese farmers won't even eat the food they produce, if you can believe that. That's because it's clear that China's water pollution issues are so pronounced that it threatens the country's entire food supply.Chinese farmers have said there is no available water for crops except "dirty water." As part of the country's industrial prowess, it is also one of the largest producers (and consumers) of fertilizers and pesticides, Water Politics reported.The site noted further that as China's industrial might grows, so too does the level of contaminants in the country's water supply. Lakes, rivers, streams and falling water tables are becoming more polluted by the year.In addition to man-made pollutants, animals produce about 90 percent of the organic pollutants and half of the nitrogen in China's water, say experts at the Chinese Academy for Environmental Planning. There are times when water is so polluted it turns black – yet it is still used to irrigate crops, and of course, that affects so-called organic farming operations as well. These nine foods are particularly vulnerable to becoming tainted, Natural Health 365 noted: Fish: Some 80 percent of the tilapia sold in the U.S. come from fish farms in China, as well as half the cod. Water pollution in China is a horrible problem, so any fish grown there are suspect. Chicken: Poultry produced in China is very often plagued with illnesses like avian flu.Apples and apple juice: Only recently has the U.S. moved to allow the importation of Chinese apples, though American producers grow plenty for the country and the world. Rice: Though this is a staple in China and much of the rice in the U.S. comes from there, some of it has been found to be made of resin and potato. Mushrooms: Some 34 percent of processed mushrooms come from China. Salt: Some salt produced in China for industrial uses has made its way to American dinner tables. Black pepper: One Chinese vendor was trying to pass off mud flakes as pepper. Green peas: Phony peas have been found in China made of soy, green dye and other questionable substances. Garlic: About one-third of all garlic in the U.S. comes from China.Shop wisely.

On December 29, the Islamic State released another “Cubs of the Caliphate” training video in which child soldiers are shown murdering helpless prisoners. [As in the previous “Cubs” video, preteen children are shown moving through a training course like a military squad, using their handguns to murder bound captives they discover along the way. Last year’s video had the trainees sweeping through an outdoor area, evidently somewhere in Syria this time they are going through a ruined building somewhere in or near the Islamic State’s capital of Raqqa. Another similarity to the earlier video is that the executions are made to resemble a video game. Unlike the previous video release, this time the prisoners are allowed to move around with their hands behind their backs, turning the exercise into a murderous chase. Some prisoners are shown weeping and pleading when cornered by the children. The bloody aftermath of their executions is shown in detail. One prisoner is shot in the leg or groin and tries to crawl to safety before his child murderer shoots him in the leg again to stop him, prompting a howl of pain and fear. The little boy then stands over his victim and finishes the job with a string of shots. Another hysterically weeping victim is brought to his knees with a bullet to the leg and then shot in the top of the head. The ISIS cameramen linger on him as he takes his last ragged breaths. Several armed children corner the last victim on a rooftop, who appears to leap to his death to escape them. The children go downstairs and pump several bullets into his head. One of the victims is notably identified as a member of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party or PKK, the Kurdish separatist group in Turkey. The Turkish government frequently claims the Kurdish YPG militia in Syria, which is allied with the United States and has been fighting the Islamic State since its inception, is a branch of the PKK. Some of the children shown in the video appear to be wounded. One of them has a cast on his arm. The video, titled “My Father Told Me,” also shows children aged 9 to 13 training with firearms, rocket launchers, and combat. They also read the Koran, undergo jihadi indoctrination, and pledge to fight for the Islamic State. Below is an excerpt from the ISIS video provided by the UK Daily Mail. The full video, which contains extremely graphic content, can be seen at Heavy. com.

.@rortybomb I'll stand corrected, but I don't believe there were any less-than-lethal paintball guns in Newark. Postal tagging is a felony.

Africa managed the pandemic by prescribing ivermectin.

Military forces in Turkey attempted a coup on Friday, plunging the country into a long night of violence and intrigue. Hundreds of people were killed, and the embattled president’s location was unknown for hours. He later emerged, and by Saturday morning, the coup appeared to be unraveling. • President Recep Tayyip Erdogan returned to Istanbul early Saturday. Speaking at Istanbul Ataturk Airport, he blamed “a minority within the armed forces” for the coup attempt and said those responsible would “pay a heavy price for their treason to Turkey. ” He suggested that the plotters had tried to assassinate him on Friday with a bombing in the Turkish Mediterranean resort town of Marmaris. • Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said 265 people had been killed and 1, 440 had been wounded. Seventeen police officers were killed in a helicopter attack on the outskirts of Ankara, and 12 people were killed after a bomb was detonated at Parliament. • Thousands of soldiers and officers linked to the coup were arrested on Saturday. “All of these guys will go to prison for life,” said Ilnur Cevik, an aide to Mr. Erdogan. • The White House said there were no indications that Americans were killed or injured in the violence. President Obama reiterated the United States’s “unwavering support for the democratically elected, civilian government of Turkey,” according to a statement. • Mr. Erdogan called on the U. S. to arrest or extradite Fethullah Gulen, a Muslim cleric living in exile in Pennsylvania, whom Mr. Erdogan accused of plotting against him. Mr. Gulen denied any role in the coup attempt, saying in a statement that he condemned it “in the strongest terms. ” Secretary of State John Kerry said the U. S. would listen to any inquiries. • It was not clear to what extent the coup forces had managed to gain control of important state facilities and institutions. • It was not clear who was behind the coup attempt, how much of the Turkish military supported it or why it had been mounted now. • It was not clear how the coup would affect strike missions against the Islamic State from the Incirlik air base. The Pentagon said on Saturday that Turkish authorities had at least temporarily halted flights. • Turkish Armed Forces The country’s military is a trusted institution, seen as the guardian of the secularist principles on which modern Turkey was founded. It has intervened in national politics a number of times, including three previous coups since 1960, and it maneuvered to oust an Islamist prime minister in 1997. The military has historically opposed interventions abroad, but it is not known how senior officers, many of them appointed by Mr. Erdogan, feel about his recent interventions in Syria. • President Recep Tayyip Erdogan An Islamist and populist who has been the dominant figure in the country for more than a decade, Mr. Erdogan came to power promising to overhaul the economy and give the country’s rural, more religious majority a bigger voice in the capital. More recently, he has grown increasingly autocratic and alienated many Turks as he cracked down on protests, took control of the news media and renewed war with Kurdish militants in the country’s southeast. • Fethullah Gulen Mr. Gulen is a former imam and onetime ally of Mr. Erdogan who now lives in exile in the United States, with an extensive following in Turkey. He has promoted a more liberal stream of Islam, and his ideas are popular with the country’s police and intelligence establishments, though not necessarily the military. Mr. Erdogan accused Mr. Gulen and his supporters, whom he has called terrorists, of being responsible for the coup he has repeatedly accused Mr. Gulen of plotting against him in the past. The Gulen movement denied involvement in the coup attempt and denounced any military intervention in Turkey’s domestic affairs. • Republican People’s Party The leftist main opposition party is considered not as as the governing Justice and Development Party. It has been trying to find a way to break Mr. Erdogan’s political grip, but it would not be likely to benefit from a coup in the past, the military has tended to sideline leaders of all political parties when it took power. • NATO and the United States Turkey has been an American ally and a NATO member since 1952. Though the Obama administration has criticized Mr. Erdogan’s crackdown on civil society in Turkey, the United States sees him as a stabilizing and mainly leader in a volatile region. The coalition fighting the Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq makes heavy use of Incirlik Air Base in Turkey.

@davidwalliams @isobelletomkins but it is the will of the koran & it's hadiths, which is deemed absolute truth by its followers. What next?

Online retailer ASOS has come under fire for their horrible lack of judgment in having a black model wear a t-shirt that has the word slave on it in huge letters. For some reason, it never occurred to anyone in the process of approval that this might be considered extremely racist.The t-shirt, which is by the brand Wasted Heroes, was posted to ASOS website and the internet basically blew up as soon as it was published. It didn t take long before there was enough backlash to encourage the company to remove the photo, as Twitter users reprimanded the company with an onslaught of complaints.Seriously, you have to be pretty dense in order to overlook how bad of an idea this t-shirt and photo was. But apparently, ASOS is fine with being ignorant the company took zero responsibility for the offense, and instead blamed the manufacturer. A spokesperson for the company offered no apology and simply said: Marketplace is a collection of independent sellers [like Wasted Heroes] who must agree to our terms and conditions when they join. Whenever we find a product that violates our policies we remove it immediately. The company s response on social media was equally underwhelming, and pointed complaints to the manufacturer:Wasted Heroes didn t do much better, but they at least admitted that the decision was extremely stupid of us. The company s weak attempt at an apology was overshadowed by the suggestion that shoppers had misinterpreted the shirt. When you go to Wasted Heroes website, you can see the same t-shirt alongside other slave-themed merchandise although the shirts are hanging from a bar and chains instead of people.One has to wonder how such monstrous mistakes go unnoticed and make it all the way to a company s website without one person raising a red flag. This is ASOS second strike within the last few months last October, the company was criticized for selling bindis in their site s Halloween section.There have been several instances of other retailers making similar racist or culturally clueless mistakes. In 2014, Zara had to remove a children s shirt because it bared resemblance to concentration camp uniforms. A few years before that, Adidas was forced to pull a pair of trainers before they even got to stores because the shoes included Velcro shackles, which caused outrage for being reminiscent of shackles worn by prisoners or slaves.Companies need to do better. There s no reason why something as racist, offensive and culturally inappropriate as these examples should make it all the way up the chain of commands and onto shelves or websites. Featured image via ASOS website

The order for the blockade of Crimea came from Turkey to free the market for Turkish goods.

“@sonaliranade: Let there be more, not less. #CharlieHebdo http://t.co/sDDWQo43kC”

Washington (CNN) Compromises on some of the crucial issues that have long divided the West and Iran over the latter's nuclear program -- including the number of centrifuges Tehran can keep in any deal -- are being reached in ongoing talks, according to Western officials. Two Western diplomats told CNN Thursday that the parties are narrowing in on 6,000 centrifuges, down from the 6,500 that had been under discussion. But both American and Iranian officials strongly denied that there was a draft agreement under review, as the Associated Press reported earlier in the day. "There's no draft document being circulated," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Thursday, as negotiations ahead of a March 31 deadline for a framework deal continue in Lausanne, Switzerland. "The fundamental framework issues are still under comprehensive discussion." Testifying at a congressional hearing Thursday morning, Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken also denied the report. "My understanding is that there is no draft," Blinken said. A senior Iranian negotiator similarly stated that "we haven't started drafting yet" and that no specific details on issues such as the number of centrifuges have been agreed to. "The numbers and figures mentioned here and there are just imaginations," Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Abbas Araqchi told Iran's state-run Press TV. "If [Iranian leaders] cannot agree to a reasonable deal, they will keep Iran on the path it's on today," he said, according to prepared remarks, "a path that has isolated Iran, and the Iranian people, from so much of the world, caused so much hardship for Iranian families, and deprived so many young Iranians of the jobs and opportunities they deserve." He went on to frame the current opportunity to secure a deal as fleeting and historic, one, he said, "we should not miss." The President also said in his Nowruz message that "the days and weeks ahead will be critical" for negotiations, and acknowledged that while "negotiations have made progress...gaps remain." One of those gaps in the negotiations concerns the number of centrifuges Iran can use to enrich uranium. While Iran claims its nuclear program is peaceful in nature, the U.S. is determined to restrict the amount of time in which Iran would be able to produce the fissile material for one nuclear weapon -- referred to as "breakout time" -- to more than a year. Limiting the number of centrifuges would be key to such a goal. The delegations, which also include the U.K., France, Germany, Russia and China, are also seeking to bridge disagreements over how long restrictions would remain on Iran's nuclear program before they are phased out. The U.S. is seeking to keep the bulk of restrictions in place for 10 years, according to the AP report. But Blinken told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the timeframe of the agreement is still being discussed by negotiators. He also pushed back on the idea that all of the checks on Iran would automatically expire at the end of this period. "What we are proposing and what we are seeking to achieve is a series of constraints and obligations," he explained. "Some will end after a long period of time, others will continue longer than that, and still others will be indefinite, in perpetuity." Previously, U.S. officials have said the U.S. is working towards a "double-digit" time frame. In a briefing in Lausanne Thursday on how and when sanctions against Iran would be phased out, U.S. officials said they didn't expect that Iran would accept a 15-year deal. But they added that a considerable amount of time, in which Iran would have established a long history of compliance, would have elapsed before the full termination of sanctions would be warranted. Sanctions have become a key part of the debate in Washington over the Obama administration's negotiations with Iran, as Republican and some Democratic members of Congress have objected to the deal and shown little inclination to lift sanctions legislators have imposed -- a key form of leverage on Iran. U.S. officials on Thursday sought to allay some of the concerns. The officials said that sanctions relief would be phrased -- suspended first and repealed later -- in case Iran violates its commitments, and be dependent on benchmarks such as verification by the U.N. nuclear agency. However, the officials said the U.S. would be prepared to move quickly with relief if Iran moved quickly with compliance, and that they wanted to makes sure there was significant relief without too much delay because if only a little were given done up front, Iran might feel there is no political benefit in a deal. The officials also described a snap-back mechanism that the U.S. wants to accompany the suspension or termination of U.N. sanctions, which are in addition to those Congress has mandated. One kind of snap-back sanctions would require a U.N. Security Council vote, but officials suggested it might be possible to put a trigger in place, in which a full vote wouldn't be necessary. The U.S. and its five partners, known collectively as the P5+1, are also emphasizing the need for nuclear inspectors to be given full access to Iranian facilities so they can ensure Iran remains in compliance with the terms of the deal. "We are pushing tough issues," Kerry told a group of reporters Thursday, but "we are making progress." Kerry has met with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif repeatedly over the past couple weeks in an effort to resolve these obstacles, and other points of contention that stand between them and a deal.

Watch these two stunning interviews, where police officers almost admit to this liberal reporter that they ve been told to stand down:I tell a police officer I've been seeing people get beat up all day and they haven't been around. "Okay, and?" he says. pic.twitter.com/OuGEcvvb8R Shane Bauer (@shane_bauer) April 15, 2017This police officer is clearly agitated that he s being asked why he s ignoring the violence:I ask a cop why they've been hanging back as a brawl is happening half a block away in Berkeley. "I'm not at liberty to discuss my tactics." pic.twitter.com/teGEYBV1ho Shane Bauer (@shane_bauer) April 15, 2017The last time violence erupted in Berkeley when anti-Trump terrorists attacked members of a pro-Trump rally, Americans were stunned to see police officers standing by and watching the violence unfold without making any attempt to stop it. So it s no surprise that the Berkeley farmers market made the decision to close down after 30 years for the day due to threats of violence at today s Patriots Day rally.Martin Bourque, director of the Ecology Center which runs the market, said the center decided to cancel the market because of the unpredictability of the planned Patriots Day rally, which is scheduled to start at the park at noon. A counter-rally organized by people on the far left will begin at 10 a.m. In early March, the last time the two sides met in the park, the protests turned bloody, police seized numerous bats and sticks, and ten people were arrested. Berkeley SideSome of the farmers chose to come anyhow, as seen in the background in the video below where conservative reporter Lauren Southern is covering the events while wearing a gas mask and helmet. https://t.co/XLf1ZJXTji Lauren Southern (@Lauren_Southern) April 15, 2017It wasn t long though before all out violence and chaos broke out between the patriots attending a pro-Trump rally and the terror group Antifa, which is really just a collection of Soros-paid thugs, anti-Trump Democrats and basement dwellers looking for something to do that makes them feel like they have a purpose in life. Watch how quickly things escalate in the video below. Note how the cowardly anti-Trumpers drag one person into their crowd and then gang up on him to ensure maximum violence is used against them, while Trump supporters appear to be trying to either stop the fights or fighting anti-Trumpers in one-on-one battles: https://twitter.com/TEN_GOP/status/853347335463743492Antifa terror group throws projectiles, pepper bombs at pro-Trump supporters then run away. Twitter user suggests they re running back to their parents basements LOL!#ANTIFA Throws bottles & pepper bombs at #Trump supporters in Berkeley then run away, presumably back to their mother's basement.#TaxMarch pic.twitter.com/MNpsm3mo7J DeeconX (@DeeconX) April 15, 2017Last March the local news station confirmed that the police allowed violent Democrats to attack peaceful Trump supporters and confirmed that Trump supporters who were part of a planned March 4 Trump nationwide rally were seriously outnumbered:

Says Goldman Sachs CEO said Congress would have to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and give huge tax breaks to the wealthy and the large corporations.

Amid what is now an epidemic of fake hate crimes there comes a strange and peculiar incident, which bears all the signs of being yet another hate hoax.[ activist Linda Sarsour has raised $110, 000 and counting on the alleged beating of a Muslim woman in Columbus, Ohio — an area very heavily populated with Muslims, where a young Muslim woman, Rifqa Bary, had to flee for her life ten years ago after she said her father threatened to kill her for converting to Christianity, and one mosque has a history of terror ties. On Sunday morning, Sarsour tweeted: “Please support Rahma, who was brutally beaten yesterday by a white male in Columbus, OH. This is unacceptable. ”https: . gofundme. ”>crowdfunding campaign dedicated to the support of the girl who was raped by Muslim migrants took a full year to reach $80, 000. While this crowdfunding page was receiving a huge number of donations with no publicity, the media coverage that there initially was on this case suddenly disappeared, without explanation. Columbus’ ABC6 did a story on it, headlined “Family of Muslim woman calling alleged assault a ‘hate crime,’” but a couple of short hours after it went online, it disappeared. It wasn’t retracted the space where it was now bears the notice, “Hmmm, we couldn’t find the page you were looking for. ” Aside from this mysteriously vanished ABC6 story, I initially only found two articles about the case. One was on the Muslim site bartamaha. com. The other is on a site called CarbonatedTV, which states that “the victim said the man was interviewed by the police but released without charges. ” It also notes that the Council on Relations (CAIR) is involved in the case, quoting Jennifer Nimer, executive director of : “The fact that the perpetrator was not taken into custody and was not charged raises serious concerns and sends a very dangerous message. ” The national CAIR site also contains a press release about this alleged incident. A rally that had been scheduled for Warsame on Monday was canceled, also only a few short hours after it was announced. The Columbus Underground page announcing the rally now bears the cryptic explanation: “This rally is being postponed per the request of family lawyer. The family and friends are further discussing it and will announce a new date for this event soon. ” First, Columbus police issued a statement refusing to acknowledge the incident as a “hate crime. ” According to the NBC affiliate WKYC, they could not arrest anyone at the scene “due to the lack of physical evidence and conflicting stories” by everyone involved. They noted that they arrived on the scene not in response to any reports of hate crimes, but because multiple citizens had reported public child abuse and potential child abduction. WKYC notes that police did not name anyone involved. The Daily Caller reported Monday, before the police statement came out, a version of the story that corresponded with the WKYC report. The outlet claimed that there was another victim in the incident: a woman named Samantha Morales, who said that “Sarsour and CAIR have the story all wrong, including the allegations that racial epithets were hurled at Warsame. ” Morales stated, according to the Daily Caller, that the incident began when a “woman of African heritage who lives in her apartment complex was yelling at and hitting her son with a shoe. ” Morales tried to intervene, whereupon “she was attacked first by a mob of men and women, including Warsame, following a neighborhood argument involving a woman and her son. ” Said Morales: “What happened is not what she is claiming. The woman that is in the hospital, I feel sorry for her, but she is one of the women who was kicking and hitting me after I got tased. ” It was Morales’ boyfriend, Boyce, who according to Warsame hurled racial epithets at her. Morales and Boyce deny this. With major challenges to Warsame’s story surfacing, many questions remain. Where is all this money for Rahma Warsame coming from? With Warsame exposed, what will it now go to fund? Why aren’t there more journalists who are pursuing the questionable aspects of this story and challenging Sarsour’s version of the incident and the fundraising efforts based thereon? Would doing that be “Islamophobic”? Pamela Geller is the President of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) publisher of PamelaGeller. com and author of The Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America and Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance. Follow her on Twitter here. Like her on Facebook here.

Tweet Widget by BAR executive editor Glen Ford So-called “fake news” has Obama shook up – probably because he and other presidents want to keep their monopoly on false narratives. “The ruling class, which Obama so faithfully serves, has lost control of the social and political narrative, without which it cannot ‘protect’ its wealth, privilege and power. It is a crisis of legitimacy, rooted in the crisis of capitalism, itself.” Obama’s Musings on False Narratives and Fake Stories by BAR executive editor Glen Ford “ People no longer believe the fake “news” and bogus narratives issued by the ruling class and its corporate and military misinformation specialists.” President Obama traveled to Berlin last week to browbeat Europeans on why they should continue to play junior partners in Washington’s quest for full spectrum global domination, but kept returning to his post-election obsession: the existential threat posed by “fake news” on social media. It was as if the realization had just dawned on the lame duck president, that his own powers to create “facts” and manufacture “news” out of thin air would soon be gone. Without the Clintons in the White House to continue the neoliberal project, history might conclude that the First Black President’s only enduring legacy was...that he was the first Black president. It’s a question of who gets to decide what’s “fake” or not. Obama fears that what he calls “fake” news begets fake history, which begets the fall of western civilization as the rulers would like people to imagine it. Fake news is a grave danger “in an age where there’s so much active misinformation and its packaged very well and it looks the same when you see it on a Facebook page or you turn on your television,” according to Obama . “If everything seems to be the same and no distinctions are made, then we won’t know what to protect,” he told the Germans. It was a magic kind of moment. The legendarily cool and collected Obama had just let out the secret: the ruling class, which he so faithfully serves, has lost control of the social and political narrative, without which it cannot “protect” its wealth, privilege and power. “ When the people come to believe that the president’s narrative is a bunch of ‘propaganda,’ then future Obamas will no longer be able to protect the Lords of Capital from the pitchforkers.” Was the world’s most powerful individual (until January 20) in despair over Facebook’s failure to erase three or four fictitious, yet ultimately inconsequential, stories from its pages? Of course not. Obama’s problem -- and capitalism’s crisis-- is that people no longer believe the fake “news” and bogus narratives issued by the ruling class and its corporate and military misinformation specialists. “If we are not serious about facts and what’s true and what’s not, and particularly in an age of social media when so many people are getting their information in sound bites and off their phones, if we can’t discriminate between serious arguments and propaganda, then we have problems,” said Obama. This is the man that told the nation’s assembled bankers, a year after the Greet Meltdown of 2008, “My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks." When the people come to believe that the president and the corporate media’s narrative -- that the system can be fixed with a little tinkering -- is a bunch of “propaganda,” rather than “serious argument,” then future Obamas will no longer be able to protect the Lords of Capital from the pitchforkers. Losing control of the narrative is what happened after Michael Brown’s murder in Ferguson, Missouri, when Black youth stopped listening to Obama’s fictitious sermon that racism is not endemic in America, a fake history that candidate Obama had successfully dispensed in his “A More Perfect Union” speech in Philadelphia, in 2008. Obama’s targeted handful of phony social media articles generally favored Donald Trump. But the biggest “fake news” of the recent campaign, promulgated by virtually the entirety of the ruling class ensconced in Hillary Clinton’s Supersized Tent, was that the Russians were scheming to despoil and disrupt the U.S. elections -- crimes Americans commit all by themselves every cycle through massive voter purges and other racist conspiracies. To Clinton and Obama’s horror, this McCarthyite deluge of fake anti-Russian news failed to sway the very “Middle Americans” that were thought to be the most belligerent, warlike constituency of all. “The root of the crisis lies in the inability of late stage capitalism to offer anything that will stem the steady decline in the mass of people’s living standards and economic security.” The Big Tent -- Wall Street, the national security establishment, and their media – have lost all credibility with the public, and Obama was still shaken by the realization when he traveled to Berlin. Donald Trump and his crowd’s credibility – their ability to weave a believable narrative – was nonexistent from the start among half the country, and will shrink even more over time. The root of the crisis of credibility, which is really a systemic crisis of legitimacy, lies in the inability of late stage capitalism to offer anything that will stem the steady decline in the mass of people’s living standards and economic security. So deep is the decay, every amelioration of public pain would require the dismantling of capitalist structures of power, which is unacceptable to the rulers. On the most basic level, the U.S. does not have universal health care because capital has entrenched itself in all aspects of health care delivery. The rulers cannot provide affordable housing because Wall Street has financialized the nation’s land and dwellings. Good jobs at living wages are impossible, as long as corporations are empowered to maintain their carefully crafted international supply chain for manufactured goods – the foundation of corporate globalization. Black America cannot break free of the Mass Black Incarceration State until Black people eject the police, as presently constituted, from their communities, which will also require ejecting the corporate collaborators of the Black Misleadership Class from positions of power. There can be no peace -- and no peace “dividend” for Americans – while predatory corporations and cartels dictate U.S. foreign policy. The cycle of decline and repression will continue until corporate power is broken and the banks are nationalized. The rulers offer nothing, because the system is no longer capable of providing relief to the working and “superfluous” classes (that means most Black folks). They can only spin tales of fantasy and distraction – fake stories and phony narratives. American “Exceptionalism” is “Manifest Destiny” with Native American genocide and Black slavery blotted out. It is the falsest narrative of all, tailored for imperial conquest and an “end of history” — meaning, the end of everyone’s narrative except the imperialist. BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at [email protected] .

Deepwater Horizon Continues to Impact Public Health Deepwater Horizon Continues to Impact Public Health By 1 135 It’s hard to believe that the Deepwater Horizon incident, which discharged over 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, happened six years ago. What’s not hard to believe is that the environmental health implications of the spill are stubbornly lingering. Gulf residents of variety of species are paying a high price for it — so high that litigation against BP for its role in the spill, officially deemed “ negligent ,” is likely to continue for decades as people fight to get help with ongoing medical expenses. Last year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that the spill was linked to an uptick in dolphin deaths , illustrating that this unprecedented release of petroleum products in the Gulf had a lasting health impact for animals. Similarly, abnormalities in heart development among fish have also been connected to Deepwater Horizon exposure. Part of the problem is that sediments remain coated in oil and sludge . Because it was impossible to clean up every drop of crude from the Gulf, the oil that settled to the bottom continues to interfere with the embryonic development of a range of fish species. But humans aren’t doing too well either. In the aftermath of the spill, people were exposed both to crude petroleum and to Corexit , a chemical dispersant used in unprecedented volumes during the cleanup. Subsequent research has shown that in addition to having some hazardous health effects on its own, the combination of Corexit and the type of crude spilled during the Deepwater Horizon incident packs a hefty punch for marine animals. In the weeks following the spill, first responders reported symptoms like rashes, respiratory problems, headaches, seizures and depression. In response to the complains, agencies closely monitored these individuals. As the years went by, enough significant health problems arose for a class action lawsuit against BP. The company eventually agreed to a settlement that included the potential for…

@theOliJones It's basically a variant of "you're with us or against us". Well understood reflex of authoritarians.

OBAMA GIVES TRUMP A GIFT: ObamaCare Collapsing Nationwide One Week Before Election Day A look at what happened in Arizona shows the cascading effects of problems with the design and implementation of the ACA, combined with early missteps by insurers. Some priced plans aggressively, angling for market share and betting special programs built into the law would protect them from losses. Those protections didn’t work as expected. Enrollees’ health-care expenses repeatedly overshot the projections of nearly all Arizona’s insurers. The result: a flood of red ink, then withdrawals and premium increases. When Affordable Care Act insurance marketplaces launched in fall 2013, Arizona seemed like a success. Eight insurers competed to sign up consumers, offering a wide variety of plans and some of the lowest premiums in the country. Today, with ACA enrollment starting Nov. 1 , Arizonans will find in most counties only one insurer selling exchange plans for 2017. Premiums for some plans will be more than double this year, some of the biggest increases in the nation. Only last-minute maneuvering prevented one Arizona county from becoming the first in the nation to have no exchange insurers at all. A similar dynamic is playing out in other states’ exchanges, which are a critical centerpiece of the 2010 health law. About one-third of U.S. counties will have just one exchange insurer next year , up from 7% this year, estimates the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation, which studies health-care issues. In many cases, remaining insurers are seeking significant rate increases. Obama on Showing ACA Works: ‘We’re Not Going To Get That Much Help Through the Media’ A look at what happened in Arizona shows the cascading effects of problems with the design and implementation of the ACA, combined with early missteps by insurers. Some priced plans aggressively, angling for market share and betting special programs built into the law would protect them from losses. Those protections didn’t work as expected. Enrollees’ health-care expenses repeatedly overshot the projections of nearly all Arizona’s insurers. The result: a flood of red ink, then withdrawals and premium increases. “The Arizona market is the poster child for the problems the exchanges are experiencing nationally,” says Tom Snook, a Phoenix-based actuary for consultants Milliman Inc. Opponents of the health law have cited the problems in Arizona and other states to argue for unraveling the legislation, and they have proposed changes such as expanding health-savings accounts and allowing insurers to sell plans across state lines. Trump: My employees are having problems with Obamacare Obama administration officials say they are bolstering the exchanges, and the consumer impact of premium increases will be limited by the law’s subsidies for lower-income people, received by about 85% of enrollees nationally. “We’re making really good progress in addressing a lot of the issues,” says Kevin Counihan, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services unit charged with implementing the health law. He calls Arizona an “outlier,” saying that insurers elsewhere have succeeded with ACA plans. The ACA transformed the individual insurance market, where consumers buy their own plans. Before the law, insurers could refuse to sell to people with pre-existing health conditions. Starting in 2014, consumers couldn’t be denied coverage, or charged more, if they were ill. Individuals could shop for plans via an online marketplace. Partly to ensure that healthy people signed up to balance out the sick, the law contained penalties for most people if they didn’t obtain coverage. Arizona expanded Medicaid, as the law envisioned. Insurers saw uncertainty in the new marketplace, but also potential. They had to guess what prices they needed to charge to cover the health costs of new enrollees. A 2013 Society of Actuaries report suggested that the Arizona individual-insurance market could more than double, growing to 570,681 consumers, with more than 80% of them buying through the exchange. The health-care costs of the newer customer base would be around 22% higher than the old one, it suggested. President dodges blame for Obamacare premium increases Insurers believed they had protective guardrails —programs in the law to limit losses for companies that drew a lot of unhealthy, high-cost consumers. One insurer, Health Net Inc., told investors in November 2013 it could effectively pay out $1.20 in claims for each $1 it got in premiums and still break even with help from an ACA program called “risk corridors.” Some of Health Net’s Arizona products were among the lowest-priced in the country, according to Kaiser. Kim Walton, 62 years old, of Tempe, says his monthly insurance bill dropped by more than two-thirds compared with his pre-ACA plan, with help from a federal subsidy. Unlike his old plan, his new ACA insurance covered any costs tied to his pre-existing health conditions—he earlier had a hip replacement and suffered a broken neck. “It was perfect,” says Mr. Walton, who owns his own business. Krysti Horwitz of Phoenix steered clear of the exchange. Ms. Horwitz, 35, and her husband, who own an online-marketing business, were healthy. In 2013, they had a plan that she said cost them significantly less than a new ACA one would. They weren’t eligible for subsidies. They decided to keep what they had, an option the Obama administration authorized in late 2013. By spring of 2014, with the first year of the new ACA plans barely under way, insurers had to guess again at pricing. Rate requests for 2015 plans were due, though insurers still had scant information about who signed up. That was partly because federal officials extended the deadline for enrollment after technical problems with HealthCare.gov, the federal exchange being used in Arizona and many other states. One thing was already clear: Health Net’s low-price gambit had won huge market share. The company ended up with nearly 92,000 enrolled in individual plans in 2014, more than seven times its 2013 total, according to insurance-data firm Mark Farrah Associates’ Health Coverage Portal. That posed a challenge for rivals, including startup Meritus, one of the nonprofit cooperative plans launched under the ACA. Meritus drew only a few thousand consumers in 2014, and it needed to boost enrollment to sustain itself, according to Tom Zumtobel,the co-op’s former CEO, who took over in late 2014. Meritus worked to reduce its prices, and its rates came in below competitors’ in 2015. Once again that year, Arizona had some of the lowest exchange premiums in the U.S., and one of the most competitive marketplaces, with 11 insurers, according to the Kaiser data. Enrollment grew, particularly at Meritus, where it surged to about 48,000 in 2015, according to Mark Farrah Associates. On Oct. 1, 2015, insurers got a huge blow: Federal regulators announced the risk-corridor program, which many companies expected to limit their financial risk, would pay out only 12.6% of the amount expected . The program hadn’t taken in enough money from successful insurers to cover the requests of those with significant losses. For Meritus, it was “operationally devastating,” says Mr. Zumtobel. That Oct. 30, just two days before consumers were set to start buying their 2016 exchange plans, Arizona’s regulator put the co-op under supervision, barring it from selling new insurance policies. Remaining insurers began retrenching. The 2016 plans included more-limited networks of health-care providers. The total number of exchange insurers ticked down to eight, from 11, and premiums rose. “We started to see the cracks,” says Jerry Anderson, an insurance agent in Scottsdale, Ariz. Nearly all the Arizona individual business of exchange insurers plunged into the red, according to Mark Farrah Associates, the insurance-data firm. Health Net booked nearly $40 million in losses on its Arizona individual business in 2014, and another $39 million the following year, according to Mark Farrah Associates, when the insurer agreed to be acquired by Centene Corp. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona, the biggest player in the state’s individual market, had priced less aggressively than Health Net but still saw steep losses. Based on regulatory filings, McKinsey & Co. estimated the insurance industry suffered cumulative losses of between 9% and 11% of premium revenue on individual plans last year. Only about one-quarter of insurers reported a profit on the business. In Arizona, insurers set their rates too low to cover their enrollees’ health expenses. There were fewer people than actuaries once projected, with about 203,000 choosing exchange plans during the enrollment period for this year. The share of enrollees who were healthy was smaller than companies projected, partly because the law’s penalties weren’t enough to prod them to enroll, insurers say. The unhealthy people who did sign up were more costly. Insurers say that some consumers appeared to be buying plans specifically when they had health needs. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona’s ACA plans in 2014 were priced around 35% higher on average than its individual plans in 2013. “In hindsight, it wasn’t even close to enough,” says Jeff Stelnik, a senior vice president at the nonprofit. ACA-plan enrollees had medical costs around 250% higher on average than individual members before the health law, due partly to far higher prevalence of conditions such as diabetes, he says. Insurers began to bail out. On April 19, UnitedHealth Group Inc. said it would pull out of nearly all state ACA exchanges , including Arizona’s, for the next year amid growing losses. Others in Arizona retreated, including Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona and Health Net, which decided to pull out of the state’s most populous county, Maricopa, as well as adjacent Pinal, for 2017. On Aug. 15, Aetna Inc. announced it would leave most of its exchanges , including Arizona’s. Aetna’s decision created a crisis: Pinal County would have no exchange insurers for 2017. The void would short-circuit a central mechanism of the law, because consumers can get subsidies only through an ACA marketplace. The situation drew attention from Republicans critical of the ACA, including Arizona Sen. John McCain . He introduced a bill meant to “protect AZ from Obamacare collapse,” according to a press release. Obama administration officials said they believed the situation would be resolved. In September, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona announced it would continue to sell exchange plans in Pinal next year after all. The decision came after state and federal regulators “expressed their concern for Pinal residents,” though the insurer made the call on its own, says Blue Cross’s Mr. Stelnik. Neighboring Maricopa County, the state’s most populous, also ended up with just one insurer—Centene, Health Net’s new parent, which announced Sept. 14 it would sell exchange plans there next year. Centene CEO Michael F. Neidorff says his company has a very different approach from Health Net, which he says “thought they would get the revenue, the growth,” and relied on ACA risk programs for protection. Centene said it expects to be profitable in Arizona, as it has been in other exchanges. That left only one county in Arizona, Pima, with more than one exchange insurer—it has two. There will be a few more options sold outside the exchange, to people who don’t get federal subsidies. Premium increases are steep, though the effect will be blunted for those who get subsidies. Blue Cross’s rates are up by an average of 51% from this year, Centene’s Health Net unit’s, by nearly 75%. Mr. Walton, the consumer who benefited from lower premiums at the start of the exchange, worries he won’t be able to find a plan that includes his primary-care physician and his cardiologist. “I don’t know what’s going to happen come November,” he says.

Donald Trump just couldn t wish all Americans a Happy New Year and leave it at that. Instead, he had to give a shout out to his enemies, haters and the very dishonest fake news media. The former reality show star had just one job to do and he couldn t do it. As our Country rapidly grows stronger and smarter, I want to wish all of my friends, supporters, enemies, haters, and even the very dishonest Fake News Media, a Happy and Healthy New Year, President Angry Pants tweeted. 2018 will be a great year for America! As our Country rapidly grows stronger and smarter, I want to wish all of my friends, supporters, enemies, haters, and even the very dishonest Fake News Media, a Happy and Healthy New Year. 2018 will be a great year for America! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 31, 2017Trump s tweet went down about as welll as you d expect.What kind of president sends a New Year s greeting like this despicable, petty, infantile gibberish? Only Trump! His lack of decency won t even allow him to rise above the gutter long enough to wish the American citizens a happy new year! Bishop Talbert Swan (@TalbertSwan) December 31, 2017no one likes you Calvin (@calvinstowell) December 31, 2017Your impeachment would make 2018 a great year for America, but I ll also accept regaining control of Congress. Miranda Yaver (@mirandayaver) December 31, 2017Do you hear yourself talk? When you have to include that many people that hate you you have to wonder? Why do the they all hate me? Alan Sandoval (@AlanSandoval13) December 31, 2017Who uses the word Haters in a New Years wish?? Marlene (@marlene399) December 31, 2017You can t just say happy new year? Koren pollitt (@Korencarpenter) December 31, 2017Here s Trump s New Year s Eve tweet from 2016.Happy New Year to all, including to my many enemies and those who have fought me and lost so badly they just don t know what to do. Love! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 31, 2016This is nothing new for Trump. He s been doing this for years.Trump has directed messages to his enemies and haters for New Year s, Easter, Thanksgiving, and the anniversary of 9/11. pic.twitter.com/4FPAe2KypA Daniel Dale (@ddale8) December 31, 2017Trump s holiday tweets are clearly not presidential.How long did he work at Hallmark before becoming President? Steven Goodine (@SGoodine) December 31, 2017He s always been like this . . . the only difference is that in the last few years, his filter has been breaking down. Roy Schulze (@thbthttt) December 31, 2017Who, apart from a teenager uses the term haters? Wendy (@WendyWhistles) December 31, 2017he s a fucking 5 year old Who Knows (@rainyday80) December 31, 2017So, to all the people who voted for this a hole thinking he would change once he got into power, you were wrong! 70-year-old men don t change and now he s a year older.Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images.

@g__chii makes sense

In 2009 Hillary Clinton was at the State Department working with U.S. corporations to pressure Haiti not to raise the minimum wage to 61 cents an hour from 24 cents.

@AntonioFrench doesn't excuse his murder, though. I don't accept anything presented as a reason Mike Brown is dead.

@EricWolfson not just in America, man. It's worldwide.

“@ryanjreilly: SWAT overlooks protestors in #Ferguson. They've all moved to sidewalk. http://t.co/i6mLxVl8Wa” woah is this Iraq or USA

The overall fact about illegal immigration is that its not actually getting worse.

@C_U_at_TheHague @ryanjreilly @Almaz001 you just show how stupid your comments are.

Watch What Happens Live Welcomes Kim Kardashian West And Kris Jenner—Will They Plead The Fifth?

@errollouis @SI_Bike_Assoc @ACLU Note: Not giving a shit and not being a PC Sheep doesn't make people racist.

Donald Trump flew into an uncontrollable rage on Wednesday morning.Upon returning back to the mainland from hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico, Trump apparently noticed the accurate coverage of his trip. During that trip, Trump complained about how the disaster is hurting his budget plan and told Puerto Ricans that their catastrophe wasn t a real catastrophe. And then he threw paper towels to victims as if they were animals.Of course, Trump thinks this is all fake news because the media didn t make it look like his trip went well.A great day in Puerto Rico yesterday. While some of the news coverage is Fake, most showed great warmth and friendship. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 4, 2017Wow, so many Fake News stories today. No matter what I do or say, they will not write or speak truth. The Fake News Media is out of control! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 4, 2017Trump response to the disaster was slow. That s a fact. It s also a fact that the death toll has doubled since he told the people in Puerto Rico that they should be proud that only 16 people died.And the media captured Trump s remarks and actions on film for everyone to see.But then Trump attacked NBC for reporting that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called Trump a moron during a Pentagon meeting and threatened to resign.NBC news is #FakeNews and more dishonest than even CNN. They are a disgrace to good reporting. No wonder their news ratings are way down! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 4, 2017The @NBCNews story has just been totally refuted by Sec. Tillerson and @VP Pence. It is #FakeNews. They should issue an apology to AMERICA! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 4, 2017Just because the subject of a story denies the report, it doesn t mean the network should retract the story and apologize. News agencies have their sources and they are not going to issue a retraction just because Trump tells them to do so.Furthermore, Trump and his team have lied more than any administration in American history, including the Nixon administration.Their word against that of the three officials who confirmed the story to NBC is meaningless.It should also be pointed out that Tillerson did not outright deny that he called Trump a moron. Featured Image: David Becker/Getty Images

It is 1860 and Stephen Douglas is running against Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln’s election will lead to a civil war. The pitfalls of catastrophic events were ever present. In 2016, it is Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton. It is becoming clear that the election of either candidate will set off civil unrest and possibly lead to a civil war. We are now just beginning to see a myriad of pieces fall into place in which will irrevocably divide this country for at least a generation. When Hillary Clinton wins, the awakened American people, and some in the military will not accept this country being handed off to the UN and ultimately the Chinese. Hillary has no plan for America and the reason is clear. America has no future is she is elected by hook or crook. If Trump even gets close to winning, the forces are of the NWO are not going to forsake the continued raping of the American people and just give up. They will fight! The Electoral College Through out this week, I have documented case after case of voter fraud through the use of George Soros voting machines. Soros is omnipresent in the voting fraud fiasco. Also, I have broken a story about the attempted bribe of an elector in Arizona and this is only the beginning. This summer we will begin to hear rumors of the officials of the Electoral College being bought off by TPTB, for it is their vote, not the people, whose votes will elect the next President. Trump could win 70% of the vote and not carry one state if the Electoral College refuses to cast their vote in accordance with the popular vote. And you thought you lived in a Republican form of Democracy. As I just pointed out, there is always the question of “dirty” voting machines. Most pollsters will tell you that if the general vote is reported with more than 3-4% variation from the polls, one can easily demonstrate voter fraud. However, do you think TPTB, the criminal elite running this country, will care at this point that you know what they are doing? This is why they do the fake polls to condition us to the fact that Trump is losing. He is not, he is winning in a landslide. Further, the globalists always have their finger on the false flag button. This is why they have economic collapse, World War III, power grid down, a manufactured food crisis, etc., etc., etc., and the ultimate martial law to accompany any and all of these potentialities waiting in the wings. Right now, UWEX 16 is practicing for Civil War and foreign troops are in play. UWEX 16 (i.e. Jade Helm 16) will be spreading to other states as announced in their operational plans. The Federal Reserve has met with Obama and Biden. The only thing that Obama could the Fed is the use of the military to put down any populist uprising over a stolen election or a false flag attack to prevent the election from happening. Now, Paul Martin’s sources have learned and are communicating that there is a coordinated 18 state swat team drill. Could they be practicing for anything else but civil unrest over a stolen election? In short, if by some manner of Divine intervention, Trump wins, we will see massive terrorism in this country on an unprecedented scale from the Clinton Democrats and the terrorists we have let into the country through the Refugee/Resettlement program. I believe that Obama will not leave the White House and will impose his version of martial law, Executive Order 13603 style. If Clinton is able to steal the election, America is done and unfortunately, the streets will run red with blood. More Foreign Troops The knot in the noose, consists of the foreign troop movements that are taking place on our soil. I am getting repeated reports of large armored columns of UN vehicles being transporting or traveling on their own in the South stretching from Texas to Georgia. However, wide scale proof, with clear and convincing photos, not photo shopped, are lacking. Do I think that foreign military are planning for civil unrest in America? Yes, there is no question. I am encouraging all to keep their eyes open, take raw footage and transmit the raw footage to outlets like the The Common Sense Show . Yesterday, when I said on a radio interview that America is grave danger because of Trump securing the nomination, these are just a few of the things that I had in mind. Yesterday, I was reading about massive revivals in West Virginia. Pray that these revivals sweep the country because we, the American public are defenseless and our faith is our best defense. Conclusion Barring a miracle from the Almighty, the forces of subjugation have lined up against Trump and appear to have stolen the election. Pray, pray and pray some more that this 4th degree Coven Witch is not allowed to occupy the White House. P lease Donate to The Common Sense Show PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL AND DON’T FORGET TO “LIKE” US This is the absolute best in food storage. Dave Hodges is a satisfied customer. Don’t wait until it is too late. Click Here for more information.

After Massachusetts passed a mandatory health insurance law "their mortality rate went down...it saved lives."

posted by Eddie A voting machine has been caught on camera casting a ballot for a Democrat after the voter selected a Republican. Donald Trump thinks Hillary Clinton and the Democrats are going to steal the next election. “ I’m afraid the election is going to be rigged, I have to be honest ,” he told a campaign rally last week. The mainstream media are trying to portray him as mad, but take a look at this evidence: This is attempted election theft through manipulation of the computerized voting machines – and it must be stopped. The party in power in a given state controls the programming of the voting machines. When the establishment asked Trump if he would accept the outcome of the election a whole three weeks before the event, it was like asking a sports coach if he thinks the game was refereed fairly before the game is played. And the Democrats are now attempting to cover all bases. They are sueing the RNC over Trump’s election rigging claims, and also suggesting if any evidence of voter fraud does emerge, then it is probably Russia’s fault. Do not believe that voter fraud does not exist. It’s real, the numbers are huge, and it’s undermining true democracy in the United States. We must fight to eradicate it. If you notice any sign if possible voter fraud or election rigging, call the Trump Ballot Security Project toll free on 1-855-245-4634 or email [email protected] source:

@meganangelo @NickKristof Some truth but not full as Nick is known to lump and dump all religions as same in his earlier post.

Six institutions in our country now control two thirds of the capital.

Just 6 percent of millennials claimed that their social media accounts were a “completely true” depiction of them, according to a report by LendEDU. [54 percent of the nearly 8, 500 college students surveyed claimed that their online accounts were “somewhat true of me,” while 25 percent claimed their accounts were “mostly true of me,” and 15 percent claimed they were “not true of me at all. ” “While not entirely surprising, the fact that only six percent of millennials said their social media accounts portrayed their lives completely truthfully confirms a long standing belief,” wrote LendEDU in their report. “Anything posted on social media should be taken with a grain of salt, because with a little cleverness and craftiness, a social media post can completely distort reality. ” “The interesting thing about this poll was that millennials were admitting to their own on social media,” they continued, adding that “The 15 percent that said their social media was ‘not true of me at all’ know that they are totally fabricating their lives and have not only accepted it, but are are seemingly fine with it. ” “Remember, the next time you see someone post an awesome looking picture on Instagram or Facebook do not get jealous, but temper your reaction,” the report concluded. “There is a 94 percent chance that poster is either completely lying or stretching the truth. ” In a previous survey of 3, 701 students by LendEDU, Instagram was rated the most narcissistic social media platform. 65 percent of those surveyed placed Instagram at number one on the list, followed by Snapchat at 15 percent, Twitter at 11 percent, and Facebook at 10 percent. “For most of this demographic, social media is a powerful tool with the ability to create an entirely new persona, void of reality,” claimed LendEDU in their previous report. “The formula is quite simple. If you post enough artsy, chic pictures of yourself that rack up plenty of ‘likes,’ then real life accomplishments will not matter because the popularity of your social media accounts will determine your status on the social hierarchy. ” “This is especially true with Instagram, where ‘likes’ are the main way of interacting with pictures and videos that are posted by users,” they concluded, adding that “The large majority of Instagram users have formed unspoken alliances with each other to ensure they each tally enough ‘likes’ to make their posts stand out. ” Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook.

As chief compliance officer for a corporate owner of colleges, Robert S. Eitel spent the past 18 months as a top lawyer for a company facing multiple government investigations, including one that ended with a settlement of more than $30 million over deceptive student lending. Today, Mr. Eitel — on an unpaid leave of absence — is working as a special assistant to the new secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, whose department is setting out to roll back regulations governing the college sector. The Education Department says Mr. Eitel has conferred several times with its ethics officer to avoid conflicts. But it says he is not precluded from having a voice on general issues and regulations that affect the college sector. Ethics experts said Mr. Eitel’s position, which has not been announced publicly, could nonetheless bump up against federal rules involving conflicts of interest and impartiality, particularly given his position as a vice president for regulatory legal services at Bridgepoint Education Inc. an operator of colleges, during federal investigations into the company. “It raises considerable red flags, especially due to the fact that this company was under investigation,” said Scott H. Amey, general counsel at the Project on Government Oversight, a nonpartisan investigative group. Mr. Eitel, an Education Department lawyer under President George W. Bush, has been a stalwart critic of federal regulation of both colleges and education under the Obama administration. A department spokesman, who requested anonymity, said Mr. Eitel is part of a “beachhead” team, paid staff members who are temporarily helping to lead federal agencies as the Trump administration gets up and running but do not require Senate confirmation. The spokesman said Mr. Eitel would recuse himself from policy decisions or discussions related to Bridgepoint and another former employer, Career Education Corporation. While on unpaid leave from Bridgepoint, the spokesman said, Mr. Eitel has also volunteered to recuse himself from weighing in on the department’s “gainful employment” regulation, which is intended to hold career schools accountable for their job placement records and is particularly despised by the industry. The spokesman would not comment on the prospects for a role for Mr. Eitel, who served as deputy general counsel from 2006 to 2009. Some jobs he could potentially be a candidate for, such as general counsel, would require Senate confirmation. Mr. Eitel did not respond to repeated requests for an interview, and Bridgepoint declined to comment on his work and status at the company, citing privacy concerns. Guidelines from the Office of Government Ethics bar federal employees from engaging in decisions directly affecting a company in which they have any financial interest. Even former employees without direct financial ties are subject to impartiality rules when they join the government. They are supposed to avoid doing anything that — in the eyes of a “reasonable person with knowledge of the relevant facts” — creates “the appearance that they are violating the law or the ethical standards set forth,” and are advised to bring any potential conflicts to the agency’s ethics officer. Other industry insiders have also been brought into the agency, including Taylor Hansen, a former lobbyist for the sector’s trade association. “There’s no question that there’s a revolving door between the Education Department and the industries that it regulates,” said Rohit Chopra, former assistant director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and a former special adviser to the secretary of education. “This is a bipartisan problem. ” higher education has repeatedly been tarnished by scandal. But since the election in November, stocks in the sector have soared — Bridgepoint’s has climbed more than 40 percent — as President Trump’s White House has made clear that it is undertaking a campaign to slash government regulations. Ms. DeVos and other administration officials have indicated that they do not plan to continue President Barack Obama’s regulatory crackdown on colleges. Last week, the Education Department extended the deadline for vocational schools to appeal the agency’s application of the rule. That provision has been criticized by the industry as unfairly taking aim at colleges focused on helping the most disadvantaged students. While many graduates credit for their training and better employment prospects, other students complain that deceptive marketing persuaded them to enroll and to take on staggering debt for programs that failed to deliver promised skills and jobs. Bridgepoint — a publicly traded company that operates Ashford University and University of the Rockies, enrolls roughly 50, 000 students, and primarily offers online degrees — has come under frequent scrutiny by federal and state watchdogs. The Justice Department, according to a Bridgepoint filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, is investigating whether the company violated Education Department limits that bar it from receiving more than 90 percent of its revenue in federal student aid. If a college is in violation for two years in a row, the Education Department can cut off further access to funds, the college’s lifeblood. In addition, the S. E. C. itself has been investigating Bridgepoint’s accounting practices. Attorneys general in California and Massachusetts are conducting separate investigations. And last month, Ashford received a final audit from the Education Department that said the company owed the agency $300, 000 as a result of the university’s miscalculation of federal student aid eligibility dating to 2006, an S. E. C. filing noted. The university has 45 days to appeal. In September, Bridgepoint reached a settlement with the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to refund students $23. 5 million and pay an $8 million civil penalty to resolve an inquiry into whether students were deceived into taking out private student loans that cost more than advertised. Bridgepoint neither denied nor admitted the allegations. In 2014, before Mr. Eitel joined the company, Bridgepoint and Ashford agreed to pay $7. 25 million to settle charges by the Iowa attorney general that they had given students in that state incorrect information about the university’s program. Bridgepoint denied the allegations at the time. After leaving the Education Department in 2009, Mr. Eitel worked in private practice with Kent D. Talbert, who had been the agency’s general counsel. Mr. Eitel joined another education company, Career Education Corporation, in 2013, several months before it reached a $10. 25 million settlement with the New York attorney general over charges that it had previously inflated graduates’ job placement rates. He was also executive director of that company’s political action committee. He moved to Bridgepoint in July 2015. Mr. Eitel has written articles for conservative organizations like the Pioneer Institute and the Hoover Institution accusing the department of exceeding its authority. He opposed federal testing and standards for schools as a backdoor attempt at a national curriculum. Those views resonate on the right. In December, an article by Joy Pullman, managing editor of the conservative web magazine The Federalist, recommended that Ms. DeVos hire Mr. Eitel as part of a “ legal team. ”

The offices at Fox News are in what amounts to civil war after longtime host Gretchen Carlson was abruptly and without reason fired despite her having one of the top-rated shows on the network. Adding to the chaos, she then announced she would be filing a sexual harassment lawsuit against CEO Roger Ailes for what she claimed were demands that she sleep with him or lose her job.In a statement released to the press, Carlson s lawyer detailed the shocking allegations leveled at 76-year-old Ailes:Ms. Carlson, the former co-host of Fox & Friends, was terminated on June 23 the very day her latest contract expired, even though her current program, The Real Story with Gretchen Carlson, was the leading cable news show in its afternoon time slot.Her complaint alleges that the firing was the ultimate retaliation against her after she rebuffed Mr. Ailes sexual advances and also tried to challenge what she felt was unequal treatment of her in the newsroom by some of her male colleagues.The statement also included an alleged exchange between Ailes and Gretchen that is said to have taken place last fall when she tried to complain about workplace discrimination. I think you and I should have had a sexual relationship a long time ago and then you d be good and better and I d be good and better. Sometimes problems are easier to solve that way.Other details are even more appalling.On Twitter Carlson wrote a brief note to fans, but did not mention the lawsuit directly.As you may have heard, I'm no longer with @FoxNews. I value your support and friendship so please stay in touch: https://t.co/R7JBTsvYSh Gretchen Carlson (@GretchenCarlson) July 6, 2016Fox News, of course, is known for rampant levels of misogyny both in front of and behind the camera. According to his own kids, Bill O Reilly, the network s figurehead, is a domestic abuser with an awful temper who has himself been the subject of sexual harassment lawsuits. The network aggressively promotes blonde women and is known to focus an inordinate amount of time on their bare legs. That directive comes directly from Ailes, who once reportedly called down to the control both absolutely furious that an errant laptop was blocking the shot of one of his hosts legs while she was reading the news. Move that damn laptop, I can t see her legs! And once told former host Catherine Crier: Be more opinionated, he told Crier in one meeting. The guests are there as a foil for you. He also disagreed with her dress. He had admiration for her legs, a senior executive said. In one meeting, Ailes barked, Tell Catherine I did not spend x-number of dollars on a glass desk for her to wear pant suits. Carlson s description of Ailes as a mega sleazeball also jives with what other women have reported having experienced in meetings with the CEO.Shelley Ross, a former newspaper reporter turned television producer, experienced an interview in which Ailes posed romantically suggestive questions and made flirtatious comments about her appearance. This is making me uncomfortable, Ross recalled telling Ailes. She had worked with [John] Huddy at The Miami Herald and he had recommended her for the Tomorrow job. In a follow-up telephone interview, she told Ailes that she would never date a boss. Ailes s reaction was, according to Ross, Don t you know I m single? It is unclear how Ailes will respond to this latest allegation. Clearly, he s had decades worth of practice in making women feel harassed and uncomfortable. Maybe it s time karma came knocking.Featured image via Alex Wong/Newsmakers/Getty and Fox News

@BBCWorld #JeSuisCharlie Thank you.